1 Tuesday, 11th January 2000. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving and Mr Rampton, I am conscious that 3this court is not capable of accommodating all who would 4like to be here. 5MR RAMPTON: Including counsel, my Lord! 6THE CHAIRMAN: Including counsel -- you have rather more space 7than some of the people at the back. All I can say is 8that we have done our best to find a court that can 9accommodate the technology and is physically big enough to 10cope with all the bundles. 11 I would like to be able to say that we could try 12to find another court where everybody could be found a 13place to sit down, but I just do not think it is 14possible. I will make enquiries, but it is very desirable 15that everybody who wants to be here should be here and 16I am afraid they are not. So I will make enquiries, but 17I think we will probably have to stay here, so I hope 18everyone will put up with the discomfort and I am sorry 19about it. 20 Mr Irving, I have a copy of your opening 21 statement. Are there any other preliminary matters that 22need to be discussed and decided before you embark on it? 23MR IRVING: My Lord, I did address a letter to you within the 24last few days recommending that before I embark on my 25opening statement, with your Lordship's permission, we 26address one or two procedural matters ----

. P-2

1MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I thought there might be. 2MR IRVING: --- covering the opening phase and also how, with 3the agreement of the Defendants, we propose to structure 4the hearing of this action. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 6MR IRVING: The most interesting part of the action in the 7light of history is, undoubtedly, the Holocaust and 8Auschwitz and is also, I think we all apprehend, the most 9complicated to prepare. By agreement between the parties, 10we propose to divide the action into these two phases, but 11basically all the rest followed by Auschwitz, if I have 12understood the proposals also made by the Defendants in 13this connection? 14MR RAMPTON: I think that is a misunderstanding. I had 15supposed that we were going to do Auschwitz first, and if 16that causes Mr Irving a difficulty -- I am not saying 17whose fault the understanding is, but misunderstanding, 18however, it undoubtedly is -- we have scheduled our 19Auschwitz expert, Professor van Pelt, it to be here for 20the last week in January which is about when I expected to 21start my cross-examination. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: So what is being proposed, that the whole 23case should be divided, as it were, into two? 24MR RAMPTON: No, I do not think so -- well, in two, yes. What 25is proposed by us (and which Mr Irving has agreed to, 26though it appears there is a misunderstanding about the

. P-3

1timing of it) was that Auschwitz should be dealt with as a 2discrete or separate topic. 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: With the Claimant's evidence and then the 4Defendants' evidence. 5MR RAMPTON: The Claimant gives his evidence, I would then 6cross-examine him and immediately following that or his 7own re-examination, I would call the Auschwitz expert for 8the Defence, Professor van Pelt, who can be cross-examined 9by Mr Irving. 10 I had expected that process to start at the end 11of this month. From what Mr Irving has just said, it now 12appears that he has thought that Auschwitz would come at 13the end of the case which is contrary to my 14understanding. 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am a bit surprised that there should be 16such a fundamental disagreement. 17MR RAMPTON: I hear it now for the first time with surprise. 18I utter no word or criticism or blame. I do not know how 19it comes about. It may be that I should have when I have 20found out what has happened. But it is extremely 21inconvenient from our expert's point of view and he is not 22resident in this country. He is in Canada. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: On the other hand, Mr Irving must really be 24free as Claimant to take his own course, unless agreement 25can be reached to some other effect. 26MR RAMPTON: I do not know there is much to be gained by having

. P-4

1a discussion about that particular topic in front of your 2Lordship now. It seems to me we have to go back to the 3drawing board and work out a schedule which suits both 4sides. But, as matters presently stand, it would cause us 5a great deal of difficulty as we thought we had an 6agreement that we could start that topic first, but there 7it is. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think it is right that we do 9want to spend time discussing this in open court unless 10and until it proves to be necessary. Do you agree with 11that? 12MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord, except that I would remark that 13I received on Friday evening after close of business about 146,000 pages of document relating to van Pelt's evidence, 15though I am surprised that they would imagine they could 16launch straight into the preparation of the Auschwitz 17section of the hearing without not giving us time to 18examine each and every one of these documents and have 19them examined. 20 On the other hand, I agree, we do not have to 21discuss it in open court. I am perfectly prepared to have 22Professor van Pelt come over in the middle of whatever 23else is going on and we can take him as a separate 24entirety. He is certainly an extremely interesting 25witness to be heard. 26MR JUSTICE GRAY: My view really is this at the moment, that

. P-5

1you are the Claimant, you have a right to take the case 2all in one bite or in two bites, whichever you like, and 3if it is to be two bites, then the parties will have to 4try to reach agreement and, if necessary, I can decide it. 5MR IRVING: My Lord, we will try to reach an agreement behind 6the scenes with the Defendants in this matter. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Will you try? I do realize you are wrestling 8with a pretty enormous burden as a litigant in person. 9MR RAMPTON: That I entirely understand and it gives rise again 10in an entirely neutral way to this small problem: my 11cross-examination of Mr Irving will consist in some 12considerable degree of reference to Professor van Pelt's 13report and underlying documents, particularly the 14blueprints and the contemporaneous journal. I cannot 15judge when Mr Irving will finish his evidence-in-chief, 16but as soon as he does, then (as with him) I must be free, 17I believe, to cross-examine in whichever order I see fit. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course. 19MR RAMPTON: Therefore, as I say, I expected him to finish his 20evidence-in-chief probably towards the end of January by 21which time I would start straightaway with Auschwitz. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I would like to do at some stage (and I 23think now is not the right time) is to work out an 24anticipated programme. I am not going to say anything 25about time limits at the moment, but this is the kind of 26case where it may become necessary to keep the thing

. P-6

1within sensible bounds. 2MR RAMPTON: Absolutely, yes. 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: But I do not think now is the time because 4I have not the feel for how it is going to go and I do not 5think it is right to ask Mr Irving to estimate anything at 6the moment. 7MR IRVING: We all have constraints imposed on us, my Lord, by 8the fact that we have witnesses coming from overseas who 9have to fit in their visits here with their own academic 10time-tables. For this reason, I am showing a great degree 11of flexibility over the timetable and i am sure the 12Defendants will show the same courtesy. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: In a day or two's time, I think, if we spend 14half an hour -- perhaps if you would both like to think 15about it before then -- trying to work out how we hope we 16will make progress, and then do our level best to stick 17whatever programme we have decided on. 18MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that would be sensible. 20MR IRVING: I think that is probably the only advance 21procedural matter which I wished to address at this stage, 22my Lord, and with your Lordship's permission, I will now 23commence with my opening statement. 24MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just raise one small topic with you, 25which is that you wrote, I think, that you are intending 26to show a couple of video clips.

. P-7

1MR IRVING: I do not think we will get to that today, my Lord. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. I was not clear why they should form 3part of your opening. That is the only... 4MR IRVING: They do not form part of the opening, my Lord. 5There are immediately following it. 6MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. If there is no objection, there is no 7objection. There is not. 8MR IRVING: One of the video clips I wish to show largely 9because it contains about 20 minutes of the Second 10Defendant talking on television and, as I understand, the 11Second Defendant will probably not be giving evidence in 12person, and I thought it was fair that we should hear her 13in her own words explaining her position 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 15MR RAMPTON: My Lord, before Mr Irving opens his case, can 16I say this in advance? I say it now and I hope I will not 17need to say it again. So far as the introduction of 18evidence by Mr Irving is concerned, there will be only two 19grounds on which I shall ever object, since this is a case 20which is being tried without a jury; the first is that it 21is a waste of time and the second is that it is designed 22to catch the public eye and is not relevant to the case. 23My Lord, those are the only two matters, otherwise I am 24happy to leave it to your Lordship. There may be whole 25areas which are not really much to do with the case, but 26if Mr Irving wants to go down those roads, then subject to

. P-8

1case management, I have no objection. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: It appeared to me, having now spent quite a 3lot of time with the papers, in a curious way it is a case 4that does not depend to a very great extent on the oral 5evidence which is an unusual feature of a case of this 6length. 7MR IRVING: My Lord, in this particular video which I wish to 8show, there are passages which show the Second Defendant 9making certain statements on which I wish to rely and also 10Professor van Pelt standing in a certain position in the 11site of Auschwitz making certain statements upon which 12I wish also to rely. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is no objection taken, so I would not 14dream of preventing you doing it. 15MR IRVING: Yes, and that is the reason why I wish particularly 16to show those videos. I know videos are a sore point 17between us because we discussed this at the pretrial 18hearing. Your Lordship will remember that I am concerned 19about the state of commercially edited videos where there 20have been cross-cuttings ---- 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 22MR IRVING: --- and things cut out, and so on. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Now do open the case. 24MR IRVING: May it please your Lordship, this is my opening 25statement in the matter of David Irving v. Penguin Books 26and Deborah Lipstadt. I appear as a litigant in person

. P-9

1and the Defendants are represented by Richard Rampton and 2Miss Rogers of counsel and by Mr Anthony Julius. 3 My Lord, there were originally three other 4Defendants as well who can be characterised here as 5booksellers, which your Lordship will observe that they no 6longer figure in this action, a settlement having been 7reached. 8 This is an action in libel arising from the 9publication by the First Defendant of a book entitled 10"Denying the Holocaust" written by the Second Defendant, 11Professor Lipstadt. 12 As your Lordship is aware, the work complained 13of has attracted considerable attention, both in this 14country and in the United States and elsewhere since it 15was first published in 1993. Your Lordship will have 16before you my Statement of Claim in which I set out the 17grounds for my complaint, the consequence of which I am 18asking that the Defendants be ordered to pay damages of an 19amount which I will venture to suggest, and I will invite 20your Lordship to issue an injunction against further 21publication of this work and also order that the 22Defendants should make the usual undertakings. 23 My Lord, it is almost 30 years to the day since 24I last set foot in these Law Courts, and I trust that your 25Lordship will allow me to digress for two or three 26minutes, being (in my submission) something of

. P-10

1an historian, on the history of those events because there 2are not without relevance to the proceedings upon which we 3are about to embark. 4 The occasion of that visit to this building was 5an action heard before Lawton J, which became well-known 6to law students as Cassell v. Broome & Another. It too 7was a libel action and I am ashamed to admit that I was 8the "Another", having written a book on a naval operation, 9 "The Destruction of Convoy PQ17. That was the only 10actively fought libel action in which I became engaged in 1130 years of writing. There were two reasons for this 12abstinence; my Lord, first, I became more prudent about 13how I wrote and, second, I was taught to turn the other 14cheek. 15 The man who taught me the latter lesson was my 16first publisher. He had signed up my first book, "The 17Destruction of Dresden" which was eventually published in 181963. I had been approached in about 1961 by this 19gentleman, a well-known English publisher, Mr William 20Kimber. When I visited him in his offices (which were on 21a site which has long since been built over, buried by a 22luxury hotel, the Berkeley in Belgravia) I found him 23surrounded by files and documents, rather as we all are in 24this courtroom today, my Lord, and he wore an air of 25exhaustion. 26 Your Lordship may remember that Mr Kimber and

. P-11

1his author, Mr Leon Uris, had become involved through a 2book which Mr Uris had written, entitled "Exodus", in a 3libel action brought by a London doctor who had been 4obliged to serve at Auschwitz. That case was also heard 5before Lawton J. There was one other similarity that 6closes this particular circle of coincidence: like me 7now, Mr Kimber was, in consequence, also obliged to spend 8two or three years of his life wading, as he put it, "knee 9deep" through the most appalling stories of atrocities and 10human delegation. 11 That day he advised me never, ever, to become in 12involved in libel litigation. I might add that, with one 13exception that I shall later mention, I have heeded his 14advice. 15 There have since been one or two minor legal 16skirmishes which have not involved much "bloodshed". 17There was an action against an author which I foolishly 18started at the same time as the PQ17 case and, having lost 19the latter, i was obliged for evident reasons to abandon 20it on relatively painless conditions; and a more recent 21actions against a major London newspaper who put into my 22mouth, no doubt inadvertently, some particularly offensive 23words which had, in fact, been uttered by Adolf Hitler. 24That newspaper settled out of court with me on terms that 25were eminently acceptable, my Lord. 26 I have often thought of Mr Kimber's predicament

. P-12

1since the 1960s and, more particularly, the last three 2years. I have been plunged into precisely the same "knee 3deep" position ever since I issued the originating writs 4in this action in September 1996. 5 My Lord, by the way, does your Lordship actually 6require to see the writs today? 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, not at all; if I need to look at any 8document, I will just mention that I would like to look at 9it -- certainly not the writs. Thank you. 10MR IRVING: If I am late with the bundles and papers upon which 11this court relies, I can only plead this in mitigation, 12knee deep. 13 I have never held myself out to be a Holocaust 14expert, nor have I written books about what is now called 15the Holocaust. If I am an expert in anything at all, I 16may be so immodest to submit that it is in the role that 17Adolf Hitler played in the propagation of World War II, 18and in the decisions which he made and the knowledge on 19which he based those decisions. 20 As a peripheral matter to that topic on which 21I have written a number of books, I inevitably 22investigated the extent to which Hitler participated in or 23had cognisance of the Holocaust. That was the sum total 24of my involvement as a book author up to the launching of 25these writs. 26 Since then, because of the tactics chosen by the

. P-13

1Defendants, my Lord, I have been obliged willy-nilly to 2become something of an expert through no desire of my own. 3To my utmost distaste, it has become evident that it is no 4longer possible to write pure history, untrammelled and 5uninfluenced by politics, once one ventures into this 6unpleasant field. 7 I have done my best to prepare the case that 8follows, but I respectfully submit that I do not have any 9duty to become an expert on the Holocaust, my Lord. It is 10not saying anything unknown to this court. I remind those 11present that, the Defendants having pleaded justification, 12as they have, it is not incumbent upon me, as the 13Claimant, to prove the wrongness of what they have 14published; it is for them to prove that what they wrote 15was true. 16 I intend to show that far from being a 17"Holocaust denier" -- the phrase in the title of the book 18 -- I have repeatedly draw attention to major aspects of 19the Holocaust and I have described them and I have 20provided historical documents, both to the community of 21scholars and to the general public of which they were 22completely unaware before I discovered these documents, 23and published them and translated them. 24 It will be found that I selflessly provided 25copies of the documents, that I had at great expense 26myself unearthed foreign archives even to my rival

. P-14

1historians, as I felt that it was important in the 2interests of general historical research that they should 3be aware of these documents. I am referring, for example, 4to the Bruns Report, my Lord, which we will shall shortly 5hear -- it is the document which I provided to you 6separately -- and to the dossier on Kurt Aumeier in 7British files, a dossier which even the Defence experts 8admit is one of the most important historical finds since 9the writings of Rudolph Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz, 10were published after the war. 11 My Lord, that actual document I quote all the 12relevant parts in the opening statement, but I have 13submitted the document to your Lordship as a courtesy. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. 15MR IRVING: There is one essential plea that I wish to make of 16this court: I am aware that the Defendants have expended 17a considerable sum of money in researching all over again 18the harrowing story of what actually happened in what they 19call the Holocaust. 20 I submit that, harsh though it may seem, the 21court should take no interest in that tragedy. The court 22may well disagree with me, and show a profound interest in 23it, but, in my submission, we have to avoid the 24temptations of raking over the history of what happened in 25Poland or in Russia 50 years ago. What is moot here is 26not what happened in those sites of atrocities, but what

. P-15

1happened over the last 32 years on my writing desk in my 2apartment off Grosvenor Square. That is what is at stake 3here. 4 To justify her allegations of manipulation and 5distortion, it will not suffice for Professor Lipstadt to 6show, if she can, that I misrepresented what happened, but 7that I knew what happened and that I perversely and 8deliberately, for whatever purpose, portrayed it 9differently from how I knew it to have happened. 10 That is what manipulation and distortion means, 11and the other, though fundamental, story of what actually 12happened is neither here nor there. In effect, this 13enquiry should not leave the four walls of my study, my 14Lord. It should look at the papers that lay before me and 15not before some other magnificently funded research or 16scholar, and at the manuscript that I then produced on the 17basis of my own limited sources. 18 My Lord, if we were to seek a title for this 19libel action, I would venture to suggest "Pictures at an 20execution" -- my execution. 21 Your Lordship may or not be aware that I have 22had a reputation as an historian and as an investigative 23writer arising from the 30 or so works which I have 24published in English and other languages over the years 25since 1961. I am the author of many scores of articles in 26serious and respected newspapers, including over the years

. P-16

1in this country, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday 2Telegraph, the Jewish Chronicle, the Sunday Express, the 3Evening Standard, Encounter and publications of similar 4repute in Germany. My articles have appeared in 5newspapers ranging from Die Welt, Die Welt am Sonntag, and 6magazines and journals like Stern, Der Spiegel, Neue 7Illustrierte, Quick. 8 My books have appeared between hard covers under 9the imprint of the finest publishing houses. I might 10mention in this country the imprints of William Kimber 11Ltd, Cassell & Company Ltd, Macmillan Limited, Hodder & 12Stoughton, Penguin -- Penguin, the First Defendants in 13this action -- and Allen Lane and others. As the Second 14Defendant is, I understand, an American citizen, it might 15be meritorious for me to add that my works have also been 16published by her country's leading publishing houses too, 17including the Viking Press, Little, Brown, Simon & 18Schuster, Holt, Reinhardt, Winston, St Martin's Press and 19a score of no less reputable paperback publishing houses. 20 Each of those published works by me contained in 21or near the title page a list of my previous publications 22and frequently a sample of the accolades bestowed on my 23works by the leading names of literature and 24historiography on both sides of the Atlantic. 25 This happy situation, namely having my works 26published in the leading publishing houses of the world,

. P-17

1ended a year ago, a year or two ago, under circumstance 2which I shall venture, if your Lordship permits, to set 3out later in my remarks. Suffice it to say that this very 4day, during the night, the Australia/Israel Review has 5published in Sydney, Australia, a presumably well-informed 6article (of which I have provided a copy to your Lordship; 7I have marked the sentence on which I rely) coming as it 8does from their corner, which provides one missing link in 9the circumstances under which St Martin's Press finally 10terminated their contract to publish my book, "Goebbels. 11Mastermind of the Third Reich". I quote: 12 "... One of the catalysts for the case was 13Irving's", they are talking about this action today, 14 "experience with American publisher, St Martin's Press, 15which, after being warned by Lipstadt and others about 16Irving's approach to history, then cancelled its agreement 17to publish Irving's book 'Goebbels. Mastermind of the 18Third Reich' in the United States." 19 So these Defendants have done very real damage 20to my professional existence. May I, first of all, set 21out the very real pecuniary damage which can be done to an 22author in general terms, my Lord, by an attack on his 23reputation. It is not merely that he suffers injury and 24hurt to his feelings from unjustified attacks, whatever 25their nature; an author, by virtue of his trade, lives a 26precarious financial existence. A tenured professor or

. P-18

1other scholar can look forward to a brief career, lengthy 2vacations, high rewards and eventually a pension. Perhaps 3some members of the legal profession enjoy the same 4fortunate expectations. 5 A writer leads a much lonelier and more 6hazardous existence. When he first embarks on his career 7he may write a string of works that are never published. 8I was fortunate in this respect. When I first started 9advertising in The Times in 1961, inviting British airmen 10who had taken part in the principal operations of Royal 11Air Force Bomber Command to come forward, among those who 12contacted me was Mr William Kimber, a publisher of great 13repute, who himself felt deeply about the ethical 14questions raised by these saturation bombing operations. 15 I , therefore, did not have the usual problem 16that faces most first time authors, namely that of 17crossing the difficult threshold from being an unpublished 18to a published author. My first book, "The Destruction of 19Dresden" was serialised by The Sunday Telegraph and 20attracted much critical acclaim. It was only then that 21I took the perhaps fateful decision to become a writer. 22 If I may now advance rapidly some 20 or 30 years 23(and I sense the court's relief) I would repeat a brief 24conversation I had with my accountant at a time when I was 25earning more than £100,000 a year. My accountant, no 26doubt with his eye on the commission involved, asked what

. P-19

1steps I had taken in anticipation of retirement. My 2immodest reply was that I did not intend to retire, and 3when he murmured something about pensions, I replied that 4my books were my pension fund. 5 If I may explain that remark? If an author has 6written a good book, it will be published and republished, 7and on each occasion a fresh ripple of royalties reaches 8the author's bank account. Admittedly, the ripples become 9smaller as the years progress, as the years recede, but if 10he his written enough books in his 30 or 40 years of 11creativity, then the ripples together make waves large 12enough to sustain him into and beyond the years of 13retirement. Indeed, they should also provide something of 14a legacy for his children of whom I still have four. 15 That situation no longer obtains, my Lord. By 16virtue of the activities of the Defendants, in particular 17of the Second Defendant, and of those who funded her and 18guided her hand, I have since 1996 seen one fearful 19publisher after another falling away from me, declining to 20reprint my works, refusing to accept new commissions and 21turning their backs on me when I approach. 22 In private, the senior editors at those 23publishing houses still welcome me warmly as a friend and 24they invite me to lunch in expensive New York restaurants, 25and then lament that if they were to sign a contract with 26me on a new book, there would always be somebody in their

. P-20

1publishing house who would object; such is the nature of 2the odium that has been generated by the waves of hatred 3recklessly propagated against me by the Defendants. 4 In short, my "pension" has vanished, as 5assuredly as if I had been employed by one of those 6companies taken over by the late Mr Robert Maxwell. 7 I am not submitting that it is these Defendants 8alone who have single handedly wrought this disaster upon 9me. I am not even denying that I may have been partly to 10blame for it myself. 11 Had I written books about the Zulu Wars, as the 12Air Ministry earnestly advised me back in 1963, when my 13book "The Destruction of Dresden" was first published, 14I would, no doubt, not have faced this hatred. 15 Unfortunately, World War II became my area of 16expertise. I generated a personal archive of documents, a 17network of sources and contacts, a language ability, a 18facility to research in foreign archives and eventually a 19constituency of readers who expected and wanted me to 20write only about the Third Reich and its criminal 21leadership. 22 What obliges me to make these sweeping opening 23remarks is that I shall maintain that the Defendants did 24not act alone in their determination to destroy my career 25and to vandalise my legitimacy as an historian. That is a 26phrase that I would ask your Lordship to bear in mind.

. P-21

1 They were part of an organized international 2endeavour at achieving precisely that. I have seen the 3papers. I have copies of the documents. I shall show 4them to this court. I know they did it and I now know 5why. 6 Nearly all of these villains acted beyond the 7jurisdiction of these courts. Some of them, however, 8acted within, and I have on one disastrous occasion tried 9to proceed against them too. 10 I mention here (and only in a few words) that 11one example: as the court will, no doubt, hear, I was 12expelled in the most demeaning circumstances from Canada 13in November 1992. I need not go into the background of 14that event here, but I shall certainly do so later if in 15their attempts to blacken my name further the Defendants 16indulge in that exercise in this court. 17 Seeking to establish why Canada, a friendly 18government of a country which I had entered unhindered for 1930 years or more, should suddenly round upon me as 20savagely as a rottweiler, I used all the appliances of 21Canadian law to establish what had gone on behind closed 22doors. 23 I discovered in the files of the Canadian 24Government, using that country's Access to Information 25Act, a mysterious and anonymous document blackening my 26name had been planted there for the purpose of procuring

. P-22

1precisely the ugly consequence that had flowed from it in 21992. 3 Stupid lies, among the stupid lies that this 4anonymous document contained about me was the suggestion 5that I had married my first wife because she was "the 6daughter of one of General Francisco Franco's top 7generals" in order to ingratiate myself with the Spanish 8fascist regime. Another suggestion was that I lived too 9well for an author -- I have lived for 32 years, over 32 10years, in the same house off Grosvenor Square, my Lord -- 11and that to sustain such a level of living purely from my 12income as an author was impossible; the implication being 13that I was receiving secret cheques from Nazi fugitives in 14South America. 15 I telephoned my first wife to ask her what her 16father had been. She reminded me that he was an 17industrial chemist, a dedicated enemy of the regime after 18two of his brothers had been shot by Franco's men. So 19that was the true story. 20 It took over a year to establish beyond a doubt 21who was the author of this infamous document. It turned 22out to have been provided secretly to the Canadian 23Government by an unofficial body based in London whose 24name I do not propose to state in this court here, my 25Lord, as they are not formally represented in this 26action.

. P-23

1 Suffice it to say that when I applied to a judge 2in chambers for leave to take libel action out of time, 3the culprits made no attempt to justify their libels, but 4pleaded that the Statute of Limitations had run, which 5plea was allowed, though I maintain with regret, by 6Toulson J. The mendacious body concerned then had the 7temerity to pursue me to the threshold of the Bankruptcy 8Court for the legal costs it had incurred in that one day 9hearing, amounting to over £7,500. It is a rough life, 10being an independent author, my Lord. 11 This brings us to the present case. In 1993, 12the First Defendant (as they allow in their witness 13statements) published "Denying the Holocaust", the work 14complained of, within the jurisdiction, written by the 15Second Defendant. 16 The book purports to be a scholarly 17investigation of the operations of an international 18network or conspiracy of people whom the Second Defendant 19has dubbed "Holocaust Deniers". It is not. The phrase 20itself, which the Second Defendant prides herself on 21having coined and crafted, appears repeatedly throughout 22the work and it has subsequently become embedded in the 23vernacular of a certain kind of journalist who wishes to 24blacken the name of some person, where the more usual 25rhetoric of neo-Nazi, Nazi or racist and other similar 26epithets is no longer deemed adequate. Indeed, the phrase

. P-24

1appears over 300 times in just one of the Defendants' 2experts reports, "Holocaust denier", 300 times in one 3report, my Lord. 4 It has become one of the most potent phrases in 5the arsenal of insult, replacing the N-word, the F-word 6and a whole alphabet of other slurs. If an American 7politician, like Mr Patrick Mr Buchanan, is branded even 8briefly a "Holocaust denier", his career can well be said 9to be in ruins. If a writer, no matter how well reviewed 10and received until then, has that phrase stuck to him, 11then he too can regard his career as rumbling off the edge 12of a precipice. 13 As a phrase, it is of itself quite meaningless. 14The word "Holocaust" is an artificial label commonly 15attached to one of the greatest and still most unexplained 16tragedies of this century. 17 The word "denier" is particularly evil because 18no person in full command of his mental faculties, and 19with even the slightest understanding of what happened in 20World War II, can deny that the tragedy actually happened, 21however much we dissident historians way wish to quibble 22about the means, the scale, the dates and the other 23minutia. 24 Yet meaningless though it is, the phrase has 25become a part of the English language. It is a poison to 26which there is virtually no anti-dote, less lethal than a

. P-25

1hypodermic with nerve gas jabbed in the neck, but deadly 2all the same. For the chosen victim, it is like being 3called a wife beater or a paedophile. It is enough for 4the label to be attached for the attachee to find himself 5designated as a pariah, an outcast from normal society. 6It is a verbal Yellow Star. 7 In many countries now where it was considered 8that the mere verbal labelling was not enough, governments 9have been prevailed upon to pass the most questionable 10laws, including some which can only be considered a total 11infringement of the normal rights of free speech, free 12opinion and freedom of assembly. 13 Germany has not had an enviable reputation in 14any of these freedoms over the last century, my Lord. 15True to form, in Germany it is now a criminal offence to 16question the mode, the scale, the system or even the 17statistics of the Holocaust. Criminal offence. No 18defence is allowed. Some good friends of mine, I have no 19hesitation in allowing to this court, are sitting at this 20very moment in German prisons for having ventured to voice 21such questions. One of them has been in prison for seven 22years. 23 In France, the situation is even more absurd. 24Any person found guilty in France under a new law aptly 25named an "amendment of the law on the freedom of the 26Press" finds himself fined or imprisoned or both. This

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1law, passed in 1991, makes it a criminal offence in France 2to challenge (the French word is contester) any war crimes 3or crimes against humanity "as defined by the Nuremberg 4Statute" of 1945. 5 Fifty years on, it has become a criminal offence 6to question whether Nuremberg got it right. History is to 7be as defined by the four victorious powers in the 8Nuremberg trials of 1945 to 1946. 9 I respectfully submit and would, indeed, hope 10that your Lordship would find such laws if enacted in this 11country to be utterly repugnant. For that same reason 12I have no hesitation in saying that some more good friends 13of mine have been fined under precisely this French law. 14Indeed, in 1993 or 1994, I myself was fined the sum of 15£500 by a Paris court under this law. 16 I had given an interview to a French journalist 17in the study of my home in London. This interview was 18published in a reputable French journal. There were 19complaints in Paris and I was summoned before the French 20Magistrates and fined, along with the publisher, the 21editor and the journalist concerned for having given this 22interview. It is, indeed, a very sorry state of affairs. 23 My Lord, we may hear the word "conspiracy" 24uttered during the next few days and weeks. If there has 25been a conspiracy, it is a conspiracy against free 26speech.

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1 I might mention that my father fought as an 2officer in the Royal Navy in both World Wars, both in the 3Battle of Jutland in 1916 and in the Arctic convoys of 41942. Both my brothers have served with the Royal Air 5Force. My father was an arctic explorer between the 6wars. Admiralty charts show two island points in the 7South Sandwich Islands named after him and his first 8officer, my uncle. 9 I come from a service family and I find it 10odious that at the end of the 20th century writers and 11historians going about their own respective businesses, 12writing books that may, indeed, have been completely wrong 13have found themselves suddenly and vicariously threatened 14with imprisonment or with crippling fines having expressed 15opinions on history which are at variance with these new 16freshly enacted laws, which have been introduced at the 17insistence of wealthy pressure groups and other enemies of 18the free speech for which we fought two World Wars in this 19country. 20 Your Lordship will undoubtedly hear from the 21Defendants that I was fined a very substantial sum of 22money by the Germany Government under these witless new 23laws. It is no matter of shame for me, although it has 24had catastrophic consequences, as it now makes me de facto 25a convict with a criminal record and, as such, liable to a 26concatenation of further indignities and sanctions in

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1every foreign country which I now wish to visit. 2 The circumstances these are these. I may say 3here quite briefly that on April 21st 1990, nearly ten 4years ago, my Lord, I delivered an address, quite possibly 5ill-judged, to an audience at a hall in Munich. When one 6agrees to attend such functions one has little way of 7knowing in advance what kind of audience one will be 8addressing, and has no control over the external 9appearance of the function. I make no complaint about 10that. 11 Your Lordship will hear no doubt that in the 12course of my speech, of which apparently no full 13transcript survives, I uttered the following remark: 14 "We now know that the gas chambers shown to the 15tourists in Auschwitz is a fake built by the Poles after 16the war, just like the one established by the Americans at 17Dachau." Those are two concentration camps, my Lord. 18 This may well raise eyebrows. It might be found 19to be offensive by sections of the community, and if they 20take such offence I can assure this court that I regret it 21and that such was not my intention. The fact remains that 22these remarks were true. The Poles admitted it in January 231995, and under English law truth has always been regarded 24as an absolute defence. 25 We shall hear, indeed, from the Defences' own 26expert witnesses, though perhaps the admission will have

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1to be bludgeoned out of them, that the gas chamber shown 2to the tourists at Auschwitz was indeed built by the 3Polish communist three years after the war was over. 4 I think it is fair to note there that at this 5point Mr Rampton is shaking his head and I apologise if 6I have misunderstood the evidence given by their 7witnesses. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: You carry on with your speech. 9MR IRVING: I do not intend to go into the question of whether 10or not there were gas chambers at Birkenau, my Lord, some 11five miles from Auschwitz, in these opening remarks. By 12the time this trial is over we shall all be heartily sick 13of the debate which has little or no relevance, in my 14submission, to the issues that are pleaded. 15 So what are the issues that are pleaded and how 16do I propose to address those issues in opening this case? 17First let me emphasise that I also have no intentions, and 18neither is it the purpose of this trial, to refight World 19War II. I shall not argue and have never argued that the 20wrong side won the war, for example, or that the history 21of war needs to be grossly rewritten. I must confess that 22I am mystified at the broad thrust which the Defendants 23have taken in the vast body of documentation which they 24have served upon this court and myself, another 5,000 25pages delivered to me on Friday evening and more last 26night. It is all something of an embarrassment to me and

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1I am being forced into positions that I have not 2previously adopted. I have never claimed to be a 3Holocaust historian. As I have said, I have no written no 4book about the Holocaust. I have written no article about 5it. If I have spoken about it, it is usually because 6somebody has asked me a question, I have been questioned 7about it. On such occasions I have emphasised my lack of 8expertise and I have expatiated only upon those areas with 9which I am familiar. In doing so I have offended many of 10my friends who wish that history was different, but you 11cannot wish documents away, and it is in documents that 12I have always specialized as a writer. 13 Your Lordship will find upon reviewing my 14various printed works that I have very seldom used other 15people's books as sources. I found it otiose and tedious, 16not only because they are ill-written but because in 17reading other people's books you are liable to imbibe the 18errors and prejudices with which those books are beset. 19If, however, you go to he original documents you will 20often find to your joy that the weight of documents you 21have to read is pound for pound, or indeed ton for ton, 22less than the weight of books hat you might otherwise have 23to read upon the same subject, and you are kilometres 24closer to the original real history. 25 As for the nature of documents, I remember that 26in 1969 I visited Professor Hugh Trevor Roper (now Lord

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1Dacre who I am glad to say is still with us). He very 2kindly made available to me his considerable collection of 3several thousand original intelligence documents for my 4biography of Adolf Hitler, and in doing so he advised me 5as follows: When considering new documents you should ask 6yourself three questions. If I remember correctly, my 7Lord, those tree criteria were as follows. 8 1) Is the document genuine? (Possibly in the 9light of the "Hitler Diaries" scandal, an unfortunate 10pre-requisite in this case). 11 2) Is the document written by a person in a 12position to know what he is talking about? 13 3) Why does this document exist? 14 The latter is quite interesting, as we have all 15experienced in the archives, coming across documents 16obviously written for window dressing or buck passing 17purposes. 18 It is documents in this case which I think the 19court will find most interesting and illuminating. By 20that I mean the documents at every level. The court will 21have to consider not only the documents originating in 22World War II on both sides, my Lord, but also the 23documents that have been generated by that painful process 24known as Discovery. It will not escape the court, my 25Lord, when the time comes that like many personalities I 26have kept the most voluminous records throughout my career

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1as a writer and even before it. Along with my writing 2career I have kept a diary. Sometimes I wondered why but 3I think the reason is basically this. If you are a 4writer, self-employed, you need the discipline that a 5diary imposes upon you, and you cannot in conscious enter 6in a diary at the end of the day: "I did nothing all 7day". 8 Your Lordship will be amused no doubt to hear 9that at one stage in the discovery process in this action 10at the request of Mr Julius, I readily agreed to make 11available to the Defence my entire diaries in so far as 12they still exist. A few pages are missing. Mr Julius 13only then learned that these diaries occupy a shelf eight 14feet long, and that in them there are approximately or 15probably 10 or 20 million words to be read. Mr Julius and 16his staff have, however, risen most nobly to challenge 17that these pages presented, and I am sure that over the 18next few days and weeks we shall be hearing more than one 19morsal that they have dredged out of the pages. They will 20hold it aloft, still dripping with something or other, 21read it to this court with a squeal of delight, 22proclaiming that this is the philosopher's stone that they 23needed to justify their client's libels all along. We 24shall see. That is not what this trial is all about. 25This trial is not really about what happened in the 26Holocaust or how many Jews and other persecuted minorities

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1were tortured and put to death. The court will I hope 2agree with me when the time comes that the issue us is not 3what happened but how I treated it in my works of history. 4 It may be that I was totally ignorant on some 5aspects of World War II, and I hasten to say that I do not 6believe I was, but to be accused of deliberate 7manipulation and distorting, and mistranslating is 8perverse. The Defendants must show, in my humble 9submission, first that a particular thing happened or 10existed; second that I was aware of that particular thing 11as it happened or existed, at the time that I wrote about 12it from the records then before me; third, that I then 13wilfully manipulated the text or mistranslated or 14distorted it for the purposes that they imply. 15 I will submit that in no instance can they prove 16this to be the case. They have certainly not done so in 17the documents so far pleaded. 18 I readily concede that what I have read of the 19reports submitted by the Defendants' experts, particularly 20those of the historians, is of the utmost interest. 21I have to congratulate Professor Jan van Pelt for the 22literary quality of his lengthy report on Auschwitz, which 23will no doubt eventually see general circulation in the 24 bookstores. Indeed, I congratulated him three years ago 25already on the first book that he published on this 26topic.

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1 I admit too that there are documents contained 2in the expertise of Professor Browning of which I was not 3aware, and which have my own perception of some aspects of 4the Nazi atrocities on the Eastern front. For example, 5I was not aware that the SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard 6Heydrich had issued instructions to his commanders in the 7Baltic States after Operation Barbarossa began, the 8invasion of Russia, in June 1941, not only to turn a blind 9eye -- this was his instructions -- on the anti-Jewish 10progroms started by the local population in those 11countries, but also actively to initiate them and to 12provide assistance. That was unknown to me. 13 This document, however, emerged only recently 14from the Russian archives and there can surely be no 15reproach against me for not having known that when I wrote 16my biography of Hitler, published in 1977, or in my later 17works. That cannot be branded as manipulation or 18distortion, just by way of example. 19 What is manipulation or distortion of history 20would be this, in my submission: for example, knowing of 21the existence of a key document and then ignoring it or 22suppressing it entirely, without even a mention. 23 If, for example, it should turn out and be 24proven in this very courtroom that in the spring of 1942 25the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, was quoted by a senior 26Reich Minister in writing as repeatedly saying that he

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1 "wanted the final solution of the Jewish problem 2postponed until the war is over"; and if the document 3recording those remarkable words has been found in the 4German archives, it would surely be classifiable as 5manipulation or distortion if an historian were to attempt 6to write the history of the Holocaust without even 7mentioning the document's existence, would it not, my 8Lord? 9 The Defendants have, as said, arbitrarily and 10recklessly decided to label me a "Holocaust denier". 11Their motivation for doing so we shall shortly hear 12about. 13 My Lord, before I continue to address the court 14on this point in my opening statement, may I take this 15opportunity to read to the court, with your Lordship's 16permission, and into the record, a two-page document which 17I shall refer to over the coming weeks as the Walter Bruns 18interrogation? 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I do not see why you should not; I have 20not read it myself. This is the document you handed in? 21MR IRVING: It is the document I gave you, my Lord. It is an 22eye witness description. I do so because perceptions 23matter. I want at this late hour to leave a firm 24perception in the minds of all those present about where 25I stand. It is a document which first came into my hands 26some time before 1985.

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1 I should say, my Lord, by way of introduction, 2that this document (which is in my discovery) was 3originally a British top Secret document. Top Secret is 4only one rung lower than Ultra-secret; some several steps 5above Secret and Most Secret, in other words. It is the 6classification given to the British decoded intercepts. 7It was top Secret because it is the record of an 8interrogation which was obtained by methods that were 9illegal, I understand, under the Conventions. 10 Enemy prisoners of war (in this case German) 11were brought into British prison camps, treated lavishly, 12well-fed, reassured by their relaxed surroundings, and 13gradually led into conversation, unaware that in every 14fitting and appliance in the room were hidden microphones 15capable of picking up everything. (That was the 16illegality; you are not allowed to do that under the 17Conventions). 18 Released to the British archives only a few 19years ago were all of these reports, but I had already 20obtained several hundred of them 15 or 20 years earlier. 21I consider these transcripts to be an historical source 22which, if properly used and if certain criteria are 23applied, can be regarded as part of the bedrock of Real 24History. 25 I would say further by way of preamble, my Lord, 26that the speaker whose recorded voice we are about to

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1hear, as reproduced in this typescript, was on November 230th 1941, the day of the episode he narrates, a Colonel 3in the German Army Engineers Force (the sappers or 4Pioniere). He was commanding a unit based at Riga, the 5capital of Latvia. He had learned to his vexation that it 6was intended by the local SS unit to round up all the 7local Jews, including "his Jews" in the next day or two 8and to liquidate them. 9 I read from this document before I do so, my 10Lord, it is of interest to see that, purely by coincidence 11and chance, Mr Rampton has picked on precisely the same 12day in the statement which I understand that he is to make 13following upon mine. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not quite following. Picked on the same 15day as being what? 16MR IRVING: The same episode and the same day as an example of 17my treatment of documents, so it is a very interesting 18case. 19 I read from the document itself. It is 20headed: "Top secret. CSDIC (UK)" which is Combined 21Services Detailed Interrogation Centre UK". "GG Report. 22If the information contained in this report is required 23for distribution, it should be paraphrased so that no 24mention is made of the prisoners' names, nor of the 25methods by which the information has been obtained" 26because, of course, it was illegal.

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1 "The following conversation took place between 2General-Major Bruns", his full name was Walter Bruns. At 3this time he was at the Heeres-Waffenmeisterschule which 4was an army school, an armament school, in Berlin, 5 "captured at Gottingen on April 8th 1945, and other 6Senior Officer Prisoners of War whose voices could not be 7identified". In other words, it is a conversation between 8this General and various other prisoners overheard by 9hidden microphones on April 25th 1945. "Information 10received: 25 April 1945", in other words, the war is still 11running. 12 "Translation: Bruns: As soon as I heard those 13Jews were to be shot on Friday, I went to a 21 year old 14boy and said that they had made themselves very useful in 15the area under my command, besides which the Army MT park 16had employed 1500 and the 'Heeresgruppe' 800 women to make 17underclothes of the stores we captured in Riga; besides 18which about 1200 women in the neighbourhood of Riga were 19turning millions of captured sheepskins into articles we 20urgently required: ear protectors, fur caps, fur 21waistcoats, etc. Nothing had been proved, as of course 22the Russian campaign was known to have come to a 23victorious end in October 1941!" Sarcasm there. "In 24short, all those women were employed in a useful 25capacity. I tried to save them. I told that fellow 26Altenmeyer(?) whose name I shall always remember and who

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1will be added to the list of war criminals: 'Listen to 2me, they represent valuable manpower!' 'Do you call Jews 3valuable human beings, sir?'" That was the answer. "I 4said: 'Listen to me properly, I said valuable manpower. I 5didn't mention their value as human beings'. He 6said: 'Well, they're to be shot in accordance with the 7Fuhrer's orders!' I said: 'Fuhrer's orders?' 'Yes', 8whereupon he showed me his orders. This happened at 9Skiotawa()?) eight kilometres from Riga, between Siaulai 10and Jelgava, where 5,000 Berlin Jews were suddenly taken 11off the train and shot. I didn't see that myself, but 12what happened at Skiotawa(?) - to cut a long story short, 13I argued with the fellow and telephoned to the General at 14HQ, to Jakobs and Aberger(?) and to a Dr Schultz who was 15attached to the Engineer General, on behalf of these 16people". It is a bit incoherent the way that people talk 17when they are gossiping with each other. "I told him: 18 'Granting that the Jews have committed a crime against 19the other peoples of the world, at least let them do the 20drudgery; send them to throw earth on the roads to prevent 21our heavy lorries skidding'. 'Then I'd have to feed them!' 22 I said: 'The little amount of food they receive, let's 23assume 2 million Jews - they got 125 grammes of bread a 24day - we can't even manage that, the sooner we end the war 25the better'. Then I telephoned, thinking it would take 26some time. At any rate, on Sunday morning", that is

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1November 30th 1941, "I heard that they had already started 2on it. The Ghetto was cleared. They were told: 'You're 3being transferred: take along your essential things.' 4Incidentally, it was a happy release for those people, as 5their life in the Ghetto was a martyrdom. I wouldn't 6believe it and drove there to have a look". 7 The person he is talking to says: "Everyone 8abroad knew about it; only we Germans were kept in 9ignorance". 10 Bruns continues his narrative: "I'll tell you 11something: some of the details may have been correct, but 12it was remarkable that the firing squad detailed that 13morning - six men with tommy-guns posted at each pit; the 14pits were 24 meters in length and 3 metres in breadth - 15they had to lie down like sardines in a tin with their 16heads in the centre'", like that in the pit. 17 "'Above them were six men with tommy-guns who 18gave them the coup de grace", who shot them. "When I 19arrived those pits were so full that the living had to lie 20down on top of the dead; then they were shot and, in order 21to save room, they had to lie down neatly in 22layers. Before this, however, they were stripped of 23everything at one of the stations - here at the edge of 24the wood were the three pits they used that Sunday and 25here they stood in a queue one and-a-half kilometres long 26which they approached step by step - a queuing up for

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1death. As they drew nearer they saw what was going on. 2About here they had to hand over their jewellery and 3suitcases. All good stuff was put into the suitcases and 4the remainder was thrown on a heap. This was to serve as 5clothing for our suffering population - and then a little 6further on they had to undress and, 500 metres in front of 7the wood, strip completely; they were only permitted to 8keep on a chemise or knickers. They were all women and 9small two-year old children. Then all those cynical 10remarks! If only I had seen those tommy-gunners, who were 11relieved every hour because of over-exertion, carry out 12their task with distaste, but no, nasty remarks like: 13 'Here comes a Jewish beauty!' I can still see it all in 14my memory: a pretty woman in a flame-coloured chemise. 15Talk about keeping the race pure: at RIGA they first 16slept with them and then shot them to prevent them from 17talking. 18 "Then I sent two officers out there, one of 19whom is still alive", in April 1945, "because I wanted 20eye-witnesses. I didn't tell them what was going on, but 21said: 'Go out to the forest of Skiotawa(?), see what's up 22there and send me a report'. I added a memorandum to 23their report and took it to Jakobs myself. He said: 'I 24have already two complaints sent me by Engineer 25 "Bataillone" from the Ukraine'. There they shot them on 26the brink of large crevices and let them fall down into

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1them; they nearly had an epidemic of plague, at any rate a 2pestilential smell. They thought they could break off the 3edges with picks, thus burying them. That loess there" -- 4that is a kind of ground -- "was so hard that two Engineer 5 'Bataillone' were required to dynamite the edges; those 6 'Bataillone' complained. Jakobs" -- he was the engineer 7general in charge of the pioneer corps -- "had received 8that complaint. He said: 'We didn't quite know how to 9tell the Fuhrer'", Adolf Hitler. "'We'd better do it 10through Canaris', the Chief of the German Intelligence. 11 "So Canaris had the unsavoury task of waiting 12for the favourable moment to give the Fuhrer certain 13gentle hints. A fortnight later I visited the 14Oberburgermeister, or whatever he was called then, 15concerning some over business. Altenmeyer(?)" who was the 16man on the spot "triumphantly showed me: 'Here is an 17order just issued, prohibiting mass shootings on that 18scale from taking place in future. They are to be carried 19out more discreetly'. From warnings given me recently, 20I knew that I was receiving still more attentions from 21spies". 22 Then his interlocutor says to him: "It's a 23wonder you're still alive". Bruns says: "At Gottingen, I 24expected to be arrested every day". 25MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I see the time. I think probably 26we will adjourn. My recollection of this document is

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1(which I have not seen as a document before) that it is 2relied on by the Defendants for the reference to the 3Fuhrer's orders on page 1, is that right? 4MR RAMPTON: And also the one on page 2. 5MR JUSTICE GRAY: Towards the end. 6MR IRVING: I have no objection to that, my Lord. The reason 7why I rely on it now will become plain as we continue 8after lunch. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course. Yes, I am not stopping you; it is 10just that now it is after 1 o'clock. Yes, Mr Rampton? 11MR RAMPTON: Can I ask your Lordship's indulgence? I too have 12written an opening statement. Your Lordship has not seen 13it. It is very short, comparatively speaking. Can I hand 14it up so that your Lordship can read it over the lunch? 15MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Irving has had a copy? 16MR RAMPTON: Yes. It is only by that route that the press can 17have copies of it. 18MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know whether we are going to manage 19to get to your speech today in a way -- if we did, yes. 20MR RAMPTON: That is why. Once this court has read it, then it 21is a public document. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will look at it over the adjournment. 23MR RAMPTON: I am grateful. 24(Luncheon adjournment)25 (2.00 p.m.)26MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving?

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1MR IRVING: My Lord, when we adjourned I just completed reading 2out to what you I was calling the Bruns Report ---- 3MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 4MR IRVING: --- which was an eyewitness account by a German 5General (unaware he was being overheard) of a mass 6shooting of Jewish civilians which he had witnessed in 7Riga on a particular Sunday which I maintain was November 830th 1941. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 10MR IRVING: He had said, you will recall, that one of the 11gunmen had called out: "'Here comes a Jewish beauty. 12I can see it all in my memory: a pretty woman in a flame 13coloured chemise." I understand Mr Rampton to say that he 14is going to rely on the last sentence which is a reference 15to the Fuhrer and the order. 16 I will now continue. 17 My Lord, permit me a word about the credentials 18of that particular document. It is authentic. It comes 19from the British archives. A copy can be found in the 20Public Record Office this very day, if anyone wishes to go 21and see it. 22 First: is the General describing something he 23had really seen? I mention this because later, on his 24sworn oath in the witness stand in Nuremberg, this same 25General claimed only to have heard of this atrocity; yet 26there can surely be no doubt of the verisimilitude. It

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1does not take university level textual analysis to realize 2that if a General says: "I can see her in my mind's eye 3now, a girl in a flame-red dress", this is a man who has 4been there and seen it with his own eyes. 5 This document has, in my submission, 6considerable evidentiary value. It is not self-serving. 7The General is not testifying in his own interest. He is 8merely talking, probably in a muffled whisper, to fellow 9prisoners at a British interrogation centre, and he has no 10idea that in another room British experts are listening to 11and recording every word. We also have the original 12German text of this document, I might add, my Lord. 13 So to what purpose do I mention this? Well, 14firstly, because I shall later on in these proceedings add 15further unknown documents from the same superb British 16archives -- that is the Public Record Office -- documents 17that go to the events of this one day, November 30th 1941, 18documents which show Adolf Hitler taking a most remarkable 19stand on this atrocity. 20 But I also adduce this document for the 21following reason which is immediately of importance, given 22the title of the book: "Denying the Holocaust". I adduce 23this document for the following reason: if an historian 24repeatedly refers to this document, the Bruns Report; if 25he quotes from it; if he immediately writes as soon as he 26finds it showing it to fellow historians, both Jews and

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1non-Jews alike, and in writing draws their attention to 2the existence of this document, and its fellow documents, 3all of which were hitherto unknown to them; if, moreover, 4that historian reads out this document in public, with its 5awful, infernal descriptions of the mass killings of Jews 6by the Nazis on the Eastern front on multiple speaking 7occasions; if this historian, speaking to audiences even 8of the most extreme hues of left and right, heedless as to 9their anger, insists on reading out the document in full, 10thus "rubbing their noses in it", so to speak; if 11continues to do so over a period of 15 years again and 12again right up to the present date, and if he quotes that 13document in the text and references that document in the 14footnotes of all his most recent works, beginning with the 15"Hitler's War", the biography, the republication in 1991, 16through "Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich" in 171996 and "Nuremberg, the Last Battle" in 1997, if all 18these things are true, then is it not a libel of the most 19grotesque and offensive nature to brand that same 20historian around the world as a "Holocaust denier" when he 21has not only discovered and found and propagated this 22document and brought it to the attention of both his 23colleagues and his rivals and his foes, regardless of 24their race or religion, and to countless audiences? 25 This is not an isolated example, my Lord. In 26Introduction to my biography of Adolf Hitler, "Hitler's

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1War", which was published by The Viking Press in America 2and by Hodder & Stoughton in the United Kingdom and later 3by Macmillan, we shall find that I have drawn specific and 4repeated attention of the reader to the crimes that Adolf 5Hitler committed. 6 How did all this happen? I shall invite the 7court to hear expert evidence on the relationship between 8the world's Jewish communities and the rest of us, given 9by a professor of sociology at a leading American 10university who has published a number of book-length 11studies on the topic. 12 The Jewish community, their fame and fortunes, 13play a central role in these proceedings. It will not 14surprise the court, I suppose, that among the allegations 15levelled against me by the Defendants by their experts is 16the adjective of "anti-Semitic". 17 This adjective is both the most odious and the 18most overworked of epithets. Almost invariably it is 19wielded by members or representatives of that community to 20denigrate those outside their community in whom they find 21disfavour. 22 It does not matter that the person whom they 23label as anti-Semitic has conducted himself towards that 24community in an irreproachable manner until then; it does 25not matter that he has shown them the same favours that he 26has shown to others; it does not seem to matter either

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1that that same community who thus labels him or her has 2conducted against him an international campaign of the 3most questionable character in an attempt to destroy his 4legitimacy, the economic existence upon which he and his 5family depends. 6 If he defends himself against these attacks, he 7is sooner or later bound to be described as anti-Semitic. 8 It has become a ritual. No doubt the English 9people, who in 1940 found it necessary to defend 10themselves against the Germans, would by the same token 11earn the title of anti-German. Is a person who defends 12himself ultimately and wearily and after turning the other 13cheek for 20 or 30 years ipso facto no better than the 14most incorrigible kind of ingrained anti-Semite with whom 15we are probably all familiar? I submit that he is not. 16 This court will find that, like most Englishmen, 17I have had dealings with both English and foreign Jews 18throughout my professional life. 19 There were, to my knowledge, no pupils of the 20Jewish faith at the minor Essex Public School that 21I attended (in common with our present Home Secretary) 22from 1947 to 1956. In fact, I was surprised when I 23recently heard the suggestion that there had been one. 24 I encountered many Jewish students when I 25attended London University, however. I would like to 26commemorate here the name of my flat mate at Imperial

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1College, Mike Gorb, who died tragically in a 2mountaineering accident. I regarded as a good friend 3another senior student, Jon Bloc. There was one student, 4a Mr Peter L, who began agitating against me for the views 5that I profounded while at University, views I can no 6longer remember; and I have to confess that I found his 7agitation both perplexing and irritating because it all 8seemed rather petty and spiteful at the time. 9 As my own witness statement recalls, at the time 10of the Anglo-Israeli-French "police action" in Suez in 111956, I joined student demonstrations on behalf of the 12Israelis, though for the life of me now I cannot remember 13why. It is the kind of thing you do when you are a 14student. 15 My Lord, when my first book was published, "The 16Destruction of Dresden" in 1963, I became uncomfortably 17aware that I had somehow offended the Jewish community. 18I did not at the time realize why and I do not fully 19realise why even today. Whatever the reason, their 20journalists were in the spearhead of the attack on me. As 21other books appeared, this polarisation among the English 22critics became more pronounced. I remember the name of 23Mr Arthur Pottersman, writing for a tabloid newspaper -- 24the Daily Sketch -- as being one of the few vicious 25critics, not of Dresden book but of my person. 26 My publisher, Mr William Kimber, to whom I

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1have earlier referred, recommended to me the services of 2his lawyer, Mr Michael Rubinstein, a name with which the 3older members of this court may perhaps be familiar -- a 4very well known lawyer at the time. Mr Kimber said to me 5in his drawling, affable voice: "You will like Michael. 6He is very Jewish but a very Christian kind of a Jew, 7rather like Jesus Christ". You remember that kind of 8thing. It is the kind of inexplicable sentence that one 9remembers even now, nearly 40 years on down the road. 10I found Michael an enormously capable, energetic and 11likeable person - indeed, very English, his advice always 12sound, and he stood by me as legal adviser for the next 20 13years, two decades. He had a rhinoceros hide, as 14I remarked once in my diary -- a remark seize upon by the 15Defendants as evidence of my anti-Semitism. 16 I also form the long term friendship (which 17exists to this day) with well-known writers like the 18American David Kahn, an expert on code breaking. Being an 19author dealing with American and British publishers, 20I frequently came into contact with the Jewish members of 21the publishing profession. 22 The editor of "Hitler's War" for the Viking 23Press was Stan Hochman who became, as the correspondence 24and for all I know also my diaries show, a good friend; 25Peter Israel, who purchase "Uprising", which was my book 26on the 1956 Hungarian uprising, was editorial director at

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1Putnam's, and so on. 2 The discovery documents, my Lord, show that 3there was also some kind of relationship between myself 4and our own George Weidenfeld which was the usual kind 5love/hate relationship that exists between authors and 6publishers. George published several of my books, 7including my biographies of top Nazis like Field Marshal 8Erhard Milch and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and I do not 9believe that he made a loss on those operations. But 10behind my back, I learned that he had made unhelpful 11remarks about me, and I had occasion to write him one or 12two terse letters about that. But I believe we are still 13friends and my relations with the present Managing 14Director of Weidenfeld & Nicholson are of the very best. 15But those are all individuals, my Lord. 16 Even as I speak of Weidenfeld, it reminds me 17that during the 1960s and 1970s I became vaguely aware of 18forces gathering to oppose me. George had originally 19bought the rights to publish my biography of "Hitler's 20War". At some stage Weidenfeld's repudiated the 21contract. Publishers can always find an excuse, a 22loophole to do so if they want, and I was not unhappy as 23it gave me the chance to offer it to an equally 24prestigious Publishing House, Messrs Hodder & Stoughton, 25for an even larger fee. 26 At the Frankfurt book fair on October 13th 1973

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1 -- my diary entry relates the whole of this -- George 2Weidenfeld sat next to me at dinner and lamented after a 3few cocktails his mistake in "tearing up" the contract for 4"Hitler's War". When I asked him why he had done so, he 5explained: "I had to do so. I came under pressure from 6three Embassies. One of them was a NATO power", which 7I took to be Germany, "one of them was France and the 8other was Israel". 9 It is right that I should state here, and the 10correspondence shows, that he later denied having said 11this, but I took a very detailed diary note that same 12night, which is in my discovery, the bundle of which -- it 13is marked "Global" -- we shall look at briefly over the 14next few days, if your Lordship pleases. 15 So it became gradually evident (and I have to 16emphasise that I cannot pin down any particular year in 17which I finally realized that I was being victimized by 18this hidden campaign) that I was the target of a hidden 19international attempt to exclude me, if it could be done, 20from publishing further works of history. 21 It did not affect my attitude towards the Jews 22in the way that people might expect it to. I did not go 23on the stump, up and down the land, vituperating against 24them. 25 I merely made a mental note that I had to be on 26the look-out for trouble. Such trouble had already begun

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1in November 1963 when a three-man squad of burglars, 2evidently at the commission of the English body to whom 3I earlier made reference, my Lord, was caught red-handed 4by the police, whom I had alerted, as they raided my North 5London apartment, disguised as telephone engineers and 6equipped with stolen GPO passes. There is a reason why 7I mention this. 8 The leader of that gang (whose name I shall not 9mention as he is not represented in this court) told the 10police that he had hoped to find my secret correspondence 11with Hitler's henchman, Mr Martin Bormann! Perhaps 12I ought to add that there is no secret correspondence with 13Bormann. 14 I mention this episode for a reason, my Lord. 15This gentleman subsequently became editor of a left wing 16"Anti-Fascist" machine called "Searchlight", and he has 17made it his lifelong task over the intervening 30 years to 18take his malicious revenge upon me for the criminal 19conviction which he earned as a result of his felony. 20 His magazine repeatedly inveighed against me, 21reporting sometimes true, often part true, but usually 22totally fictitious rumours about my activities and alleged 23"Nazi" connections around the world in an attempt to 24blacken my name. 25 I will not say that the rumours are all untrue, 26my Lord. They never are. I believe Mr Winston Churchill

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1once famously said: "The world is full of the most 2dreadful stories and rumours about me, and the damnable 3thing about them is that most of them are true!" At 4least, so rumour has it. 5 But the untrue ones about me are the ones that 6have a habit of surfacing again and again with their 7original polish undimmed. I mention this case, as the 8Defendants here seek to rely heavily on the outpouring of 9this troubled soul, the editor of "Searchlight". 10 The court might wonder why I took no action 11against this journal or, indeed, any of the other parties 12who had defamed me over the years. One of the things that 13Mr Rubinstein, like Mr Kimber, my publisher, dinned into 14me very early on was to avoid at all costs taking libel 15action. 16 My Lord, I am sure I do not need to labour the 17reasons why in this opening statement. Suffice it to say 18that I had already realized by 1970, at the time of the 19"Convoy PQ17" libel action -- that is Broome v. Cassell 20 -- that libel actions are time consuming, costly and 21vexatious, and are indeed in the words of the cliche "to 22be avoided like the plague". 23 Besides, this particular magazine had no assets, 24so any type of litigation would have been quite 25pointless. I might add that only once in recent years 26have I been forced to take action in this jurisdiction

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1under the Defamation Act against a major national 2newspaper four or five years ago, which resulted in an 3immediate settlement out of court which I can only 4describe as most satisfactory. The terms of this 5settlement are covered by the usual Court Order, though 6I fancy they are known to the Defendants here who asked 7for, and were given, full disclosure of the relevant 8papers. 9 It will become evident to this court from the 10evidence that I lead over the next few days, my Lord, that 11the international community started to intensify its 12campaign to destroy me and to truncate my career as an 13author either before or at about the same time as The 14Viking Press and other publishers published my well-known 15biography of Adolf Hitler, "Hitler's War", which was 161997. 17 The court will be shown at least one internal 18document, dated April 1977, which I have identified as 19emanating from the Washington files of the so-called 20Anti-Defamation League, a part of the B'nai Brith, in the 21United States, which reveals quite unabashedly how they 22tried to pressure television producers to cancel 23invitations to me to discuss "Hitler's War" book on their 24programmes. It failed. The programme in question went 25ahead and the ADL noted, aghast, in a secret memorandum 26that I was well versed in the matters of history, a

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1formidable opponent who could not, however, be called 2anti-Semitic. I would have to be destroyed by other 3means. 4 This is a document in my discovery. By various 5entirely legal means, I obtained several such disturbing 6documents from within their files. 7 From them and, in particular, from their details 8registered out the Data Protection Act in this country, it 9appears that these bodies, which are also embedded in our 10society in Britain and elsewhere, have seen their task, 11unbidden, as being to spy upon members of our society, to 12maintain dossiers on us all, and to deploy those dossiers 13when necessary to smite those of us of whom they 14disapprove. 15 As the court will see, the dossiers are 16explicitly designed to hold such material on the subjects' 17personal lives, criminal records, credit delinquencies, 18marital difficulties, dietary habits and even sexual 19proclivities. That is what we know from their details of 20registration. 21 It is not anti-Semitic to reveal this. The 22spying and smearing by these bodies goes on against fellow 23Jew and non-Jew alike. The Jewish writer, Noam Chomsky, 24relates that he found, quite by chance, that they were 25"monitoring" (for that is the word they use) him too. 26 Several of our own most notable personalities

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1have already commented on this unsavoury element of 2British life. In an article in a UK magazine, the writer, 3Mr Auberon Waugh, remarked upon how he too inadvertently 4found that such a file was being kept on him. 5 May I add that these "dossiers" provided by this 6London body to the Canadians, to the Anti-Defamation 7League, and to various similar bodies in Australia, South 8Africa and elsewhere, have been drawn upon heavily and 9without question by the Defendants in this action, which 10my justification, I submit, for drawing your Lordship's 11attention to this disturbing and sleazy background. 12 When I attempted to take the libel action 13against the London-based body that I have mentioned, its 14Director, Mr Michael Whine, admitted in an affidavit that 15his body had taken upon itself to "monitor" -- here is 16that word again -- my activities, as he called them, for 17many years. He also freely admitted that when secretly 18called upon by his Canadian associates in 1992 to provide 19them with a smear dossier for the purposes of destroying 20my presence in Canada by planting it in government files 21in Ottawa, he willingly agreed to do so. 22 This is how that file turned up in Canadian 23Government resources; which in turn is how it came into my 24hands, years later, through lengthy "Access to Information 25Act" procedures; otherwise I would never have known why I 26found myself being taken in handcuffs aboard an Air Canada

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1flight in 1992, after 30 years as an honoured visitor in 2that country and deported, an event to which the 3Defendants make gleeful reference in their book "Denying 4the Holocaust". 5 I may be rather naive, but this kind of thing 6offends me as an Englishman, as no doubt the idea will 7offend many of those present in court 37 today. The 8notion that a non-Governmental body, unofficial body, 9equipped evidently with limitless financial resources, can 10take it upon itself to spy upon law-abiding members of the 11community for the purpose of destroying them is one that 12I find discomfiting. 13 I have never done it to my fellow human beings. 14I can think only of the wartime Gestapo and its offshoots 15in Nazi-occupied Europe as a body engaged in similar 16practices. It is an offensive and ugly comparison, I 17warrant, and one that I have never made before, but in a 18legal battle of this magnitude, I consider it necessary to 19use ammunition of the proper calibre. 20 My Lord, I will now come to the matter of the 21glass microfiche plates containing the diaries of the Nazi 22propaganda Minister, Dr Joseph Goebbels. Your Lordship 23will have seen from the Statement of Claim that the 24Defendants have accused me of having improperly obtained 25these glass plates from the Moscow -- it was in 1992 -- or 26damaged them.

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1 May I set out some of the antecedents of this 2matter? Your Lordship will, perhaps, remember the 3widespread newspaper sensation that was caused by the 4revelation at the beginning of July 1992 that I had 5succeeded in retrieving from the former KGB archives in 6Moscow the long last diaries of Dr Joseph Goebbels, a 7close confidant of Adolf Hitler and his propaganda 8minister and, indeed, his successor as Reich Chancellor. 9 I may see here that scholars have been searching 10for a number of diaries ever since the end of World War 11II. I would mention here only the example of the diaries 12of Hitler's Intelligence Chief, Vice-Admiral Wilhelm 13Canaris, in the search for which I was concerned in the 141960s and 1970s. (The Canaris diaries offered to myself 15and Messrs William Collins Limited on that occasion turned 16out to be fake, which I established by the use of the 17appropriate forensic laboratory in the City of London, 18Messrs Hehner & Cox). 19 Forensic tests are to play quite a large part in 20these current proceedings too. 21 In writing my own biographies of the leading 22Nazis, I have attached importance to primary sources, like 23the original diaries which they wrote at the time. When I 24have found these documents, as many scholars know, I have 25invariably and without delay donated them (or copies of 26them) either to the German Federal Archives in Koblenz or

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1to the Institute fur Zeitgeschichte, which is the 2Institute of Contemporary History in Munich. In the case 3of the Goebbels' diaries, after I retrieved them from 4Moscow, I additionally gave a set of copies to the 5archives of Monchen-Gladbach, his home town, where they 6maintain a collection of Goebbels' documents, the 7municipal archives. 8 In fact, the only items which I consider to be 9of greater source value than diaries, which are always 10susceptible to faking or tampering, are private letters. 11In my experience, once a private letter has been posted by 12its writer, it is virtually impossible for him to retrieve 13it and to alter its content. 14 If I may take the liberty of enlightening the 15court at this point by way of an example, I would say that 16I had earlier also found the diaries of Field Marshal 17Rommel; some I retrieved in shorthand from the American 18archives and I had them transcribed. Those in typescript 19turned out to have been altered some months after one 20crucial battle ("Crusader") to eradicate a tactical error 21which the Field Marshal considered he had made in the 22Western desert. But the hundreds of letters he wrote to 23his wife were clearly above any kind of suspicion. 24 On a somewhat earthier plane, while the diaries 25of the Chief of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, which have in 26part been recently retrieved from the same archives in

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1Moscow, yield little information by themselves, I have 2managed to locate in private hands in Chicago the 200 3letters which this murderous Nazi wrote to his mistress, 4and these contain material of much larger historical 5importance. 6 Until my career was sabotaged, therefore, I had 7earned the reputation of being a person who was always 8digging up new historical evidence; that was until the 9countries and the archives of the world were prevailed 10upon, as we shall see, to close their doors to me! 11 After I procured these 600 pages of manuscripts 12written by Adolf Eichmann when I visited Argentina in 13October 1991, the German Federal Archives grudgingly 14referred to me in a press release as a Truffle-Schwein, 15which I hope is more flattering than it sounds. 16 We are concerned here, however, primarily with 17the diaries of Dr Joseph Goebbels of which the Defendants 18made mention in their book. This is the inside story on 19those. 20 I begun the search for these diaries, in fact, 2130 years earlier. In my discovery are papers relating to 22the first search that I conducted for the very last 23diaries which Dr Goebbels dictated, in April 1945 -- right 24at the end of his life. Since there was no time for them 25to be typed up, Dr Goebbels had the spiral-bound shorthand 26pads buried in a glass conserving jar in a forest

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1somewhere along the road between Hamburg and Berlin. 2 Chance provided me in about 1969 with the 3"treasure map" revealing the precise burial place of this 4glass jar, and with the permission of the Communist East 5German Government, I and a team of Oxford University 6experts, equipped with a kind of ground penetrating radar 7(in fact, a proton magnetometer) mounted a determined 8attempt to unearth it in the forest. 9 We never found that particular truffle. 10Unfortunate, the topography of such a forest changes 11considerably in 20 years or more and, despite our best 12efforts, aided by the East German Ministry of the 13Interior, Communist Ministry of the Interior, and a 14biologist whose task would be to assess the age of the 15fungi and other biological materials found in and around 16the jar, we came away empty-handed. This is nothing new. 17Field work often brings disappointments like that. 18 Twenty-five years later, however, now back in 191992, I had the conversation which was to lead to the 20retrieval of the Goebbels' diaries in Moscow, and 21indirectly to our presence here in these courts today. 22 In May 1992, I invited long time friend, a 23leading historian at the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, to 24have lunch with me at a restaurant in Munich. We had been 25good friends since 1964, nearly 30 years, and she is still 26in the Institute's employ today. As my diaries show, this

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1friend and colleague, Dr Elke Frohlich, had dropped 2several hints during the previous 12 months that she had 3traced the whereabouts of the missing Goebbels' diaries. 4 We all knew, my Lord, those of us who had 5engaged in research into Hitler, Goebbels and the Third 6Reich, that Dr Goebbels had placed these diaries on 7microfiches -- that is photographic glass plates -- in the 8closing months of the War to ensure that they were 9preserved for posterity. But they had vanished since 10then. 11 His Private Secretary, Dr Richard Otte, whom I 12had questioned over 20 years previously in connection with 13our search in the forest in East Germany, had told us 14about these glass plates. So we knew they existed. I 15should mention that he was actually one of the small 16burial party who had hidden the glass jar, but he was 17unable to accompany us as at that time he was still in 18West German government employment. We could only presume 19that the glass plate microfiches were either destroyed in 20Berlin in the last weeks of the war or that they had been 21seized by the Red Army. 22 During this lunch-time conversation in Munich in 23May 1992, Dr Elke Frohlich revealed to me that the latter 24supposition was correct. She had seen them herself a few 25weeks previously -- she had held them in her hands -- on a 26visit to the archives in Moscow. My Lord, you can imagine

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1the thrill that kind of thing gives an historian to have 2something like that. 3 My recollection of the conversation at this 4point is that she continued by saying that the Institute's 5Directors were unwilling to fund a further expedition to 6procure these diaries. 7 Now that I have seen some of the documents 8provided to the Defendants in this action by the Russians 9and by the Institute, it is possible that my recollection 10on this point is wrong, namely, that the Institute were 11not willing to pay for it. 12 My recollection of the following is, however, 13secure. Dr Frohlich informed me that the Director of the 14Russian archives, the "trophy" archives, as they were 15known, Dr Bondarev, was in a serious predicament, as he 16was faced with the economic consequences of the collapse 17of the Soviet Empire; he had no longer the financial means 18necessary for the upkeep of the archives and the payment 19of his staff. 20 The plates, in my view, were seriously at risk. 21Dr. Frohlich indicated that if I were to take a sufficient 22sum of foreign currency to Moscow, I could purchase the 23glass plates from Dr Bondarev. It was clear from her 24remarks that Dr Bondarev had already discussed this 25prospect with her. 26 Dr Frohlich added that the glass plates were in

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1fragile condition and needed to be rescued before they 2came to serious harm. I recall that she said: "If you 3are going to do this deal with the Russians, you will have 4to take a lot of silk paper with you from England to place 5between the glass plates. The plates are just packed into 6boxes with nothing between them". My Lord, when I provide 7you with bundles of photographs later on, there were 8photographs of the actual plates in the cardboard boxes. 9 I asked how much money we were talking about, 10and either she or I suggested a figure of US$20,000. 11I immediately contacted my American publishers in New York 12who seemed the most immediate source of money. I informed 13them of this likely windfall and asked if we could 14increase the cash advance on my Goebbels' manuscript 15accordingly. 16 My manuscript of the Goebbels' biography was at 17that time complete and undergoing editing by myself. It 18was already ready for delivery to the publishers. 19 The American publisher responded 20enthusiastically at first, and upon my return from Munich 21to London I began negotiations through intermediaries with 22the Russian archivist, Dr Bondarev. (Dr Bondarev will 23not, unfortunately, be called by either party in this 24action as a witness. He seems to have vanished. He is 25certainly no longer employed by the "trophy" archives). 26 The first intermediary I used was a

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1Russian-language specialist employed by Warburg's Bank in 2Moscow. He undertook the preliminary negotiations with Dr 3Bondarev. I instructed him to tell Bondarev as openly as 4was prudent of my intention to come and look at the glass 5plates, and also to make it quite plain that we were 6coming with a substantial sum of hard currency. Many 7American institutions were currently engaged in the same 8practice -- it is important I should say this -- as I knew 9from the newspapers. 10 At about this time, it became plain that the 11German Government was also keen to get its hands on these 12glass plates. Naturally, I desired to beat them to it, 13first, because of professional pride and the desire to 14have an historical scoop and, secondly, years of working 15with the German Government Archives had proven both to me 16and many scholars that as soon as high-grade documents 17like these dropped into their hands they vanished for many 18years while they were assessed, catalogued and indexed. 19Sometimes they were even squirreled away for later 20exploitation by the Chief Archivists themselves (the 21 "Hossbach Papers" were a case in point). 22 These vital Nazi diaries would, therefore, 23vanish from the public gaze possibly for five or 10 24years. My fears in this respect had been amply confirmed 25by events, I would submit, because many of those glass 26plates which I saw in Moscow in 1992 have since vanished

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1into the maw of the German Government and the Munich 2Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, and they are still not 3available even now. 4 I considered, therefore, that I should be 5rendering to the historical community the best service by 6doing the utmost that I could to extract those glass 7plates or, failing that, copies of them or, failing that, 8copies of the maximum number of pages possible, by hook or 9by crook, from the KGB archives before a wind of change 10might suddenly result in the resealing of all these Soviet 11former archives (and once again this apprehension has been 12largely confirmed by the attitude of the Russian Archive 13Authorities, who have resealed numbers of these files and 14made them once again inaccessible to Western historians). 15 The second intermediary upon whom I relied was 16the former KGB Officer, Mr Lev Bezymenski. I have known 17mr Bezymenski for many years, about 35 years, and over 18these years we have engaged in a fruitful exercise of 19exchanging of documents. I would hasten to add that the 20documents which I furnished to Mr Bezymenski were entirely 21of a public-domain nature. 22 Mr Bezymenski, however, in return extracted from 23secret Soviet archives for me vital collections of 24documents, for example, their diplomatic files on Sir 25Winston Churchill and the private papers of the Commander 26in Chief of the German Army, Colonel-General Werner von

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1Fritsch. From the Russian archives I obtained, via 2Mr Bezymenski, Fritsch's personal writings during and 3about the "Bloomberg-Fritsch scandal" of 1938, which had 4historic consequences for Germany, for Hitler and, 5ultimately, for the whole world. I immediately donated a 6complete set of those Fritsch papers to the German 7Government archives where they can still be seen. 8 Dr Bezymenski, unfortunately, turned out to be 9something of a "double agent". 10 Fearing that Dr Bondarev was not properly 11getting my message, I asked Mr Bezymenski to approach him 12on my behalf and inform him that there were certain 13documents he held in which I was interested, and that 14I was coming as a representative of the Sunday Times, well 15armed with foreign currency. Mr Bezymenski enquired what 16those documents were. I refused to tell him and he 17replied: "You are referring to the Goebbels diaries 18I presume". This I affirmed and ten minutes after this 19phone call from me in London and Mr Bezymenski in Moscow, 20I receive a phone call from Dr Frohlich in Munich 21complaining bitterly that I revealed our intentions to Mr 22Bezymenski. Instead of acting as I had requested, my 23friend had immediately sent a fax to the Institut fur 24Zeitgeschichte to alert them to what I was "up to". This 25set the cat among the pigeons, and the Institut fur 26Zeitgeschichte left no stone unturned to prevent the

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1Russians from providing me with diaries or other material, 2for reasons which this court can readily surmise. 3 I had in the meantime approached the Sunday 4Times after my American publishers got cold feet, and 5I succeeded in persuading a Mr Andrew Neil that I could 6obtain Goebbels Diaries from the Moscow archives, and that 7I was by chance one of the very few people capable of 8reading the handwriting. 9 Two years previously, in 1990, my Italian 10publisher, Mondadori, had commissioned me to transcribe 11the handwritten 1938 diary volume of Dr Goebbels, a copy 12of which they had purchased from a Russian source. So the 13diaries were in the process of being purchased. I was 14thus acquainted with the difficult handwriting of the Nazi 15propaganda Minister. At that time there were probably 16only three or four people in the world who were capable of 17deciphering it. The negotiations with Andrew Neil 18proceeded smoothly, that is between me and Mr Neil. He 19did express at one stage enough nervousness at the 20prospect of entering into another "Nazi diaries" deal. 21Your Lordship will remember that his newspaper group had 22been made to look foolish for the purchase and publication 23in 1983 of the Adolf Hitler diaries. 24 I pointed out that I had warned them writing 25once ahead in 1982 that the Hitler Diaries were fakes, and 26I added: "I am offering the Sunday Times the chance t

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1rehabilitate itself". 2 Armed with the prestige and the superior 3financial resources of the Sunday Times, I went to Moscow 4in June 1992, and negotiated directly with Dr Bondarev and 5his superior, Professor Tarasov, who was at that time the 6overall head of the Russian Federation Archival System. 7Dr Bondarev expressed willingness to assist us, although 8there could no longer be any talk of the clandestine 9purchase of the plates which we had originally hoped for, 10since Mr Bezymenski let the cat out of the bag. I say 11"clandestine", but of course I understand that the same 12archives had sold off many other collections of papers, 13for example, to the Hoover Institution in California and 14US publishing houses, publishing giants, and to my 15colleague the late John Costello as well. My own little 16deal was not to be. 17 My Lord, professor Tarasov is to be one of the 18witnesses in this case called question by the Defence. 19Your Lordship will be able to study the documents 20exhibited to his witness statement. I confess that I fail 21to the relevance of very many of them, but no doubt we 22shall see that difficulty removed by Mr Rampton in due 23course. 24 The Moscow negotiations were not easy. We 25negotiated directly with Professor Tarasov for access to 26the glass plates. The negotiations were conducted in my

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1presence by Mr Peter Miller, a freelance journalist 2working for the Sunday Times, who spoke Russian with a 3commendable fluency. He will also be giving evidence in 4this action on my behalf, my Lord. With my limited 5"O" level Russian I was able to follow the gist in 6conversation and also to intervene speaking German after 7it emerged that Professor Tarasov had studied and taught 8for many years at the famous Humboldt University in 9Communist Berlin. 10 By now both Dr Bondarev and Tarasov were aware, 11if they had not been aware previously, that these Goebbels 12Diaries were of commercial and historical value. The 13negotiations took far longer than I had expected. 14I produced to Professor Tarasov copies of the Soviet 15editions of my books which had been published years 16earlier, and I donated to him as well as to the Archives 17staff later copies of my own edition of the biography of 18Hitler's War. 19 This established my credentials to their 20satisfaction, and Tarasov gave instructions that we were 21to be given access to the entire collection of Dr Goebbels 22Diaries. It was evident to me when I finally saw the 23glass plates that the diaries had hardly been examined at 24all. It seemed to me, for example, from the splinters of 25glass still trapped between the photographic plates, that 26there had been little movement in the boxes of plates for

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1nearly 50 years. The boxes were the original boxes. The 2brown paper round them in some parts was still the 3original brown paper. The plates were in total disarray 4and no attempt had been made to sort them. I have seen no 5work of history, Soviet or otherwise, that is quoted from 6them before I got them. My Lord, my excitement as an 7historian getting my hands on original material like this 8can readily be imagined. 9 The moot point is that there is a dispute as to 10the nature of the Russian permission. This alleged 11agreement is one of the issues pleaded by the Defendants 12in this action. It is difficult for me to reconstruct 13seven years later precisely whether there was any verbal 14agreement exceeding a nod and a wink or what the terms 15were or how rigid an agreement may have been reached. 16There is no reference to such an agreement in my 17contemporary diaries. Certainly the Russians committed 18nothing to paper about such an agreement. Professor 19Tarasov's word was law, and he had just picked up the 20phone in our presence and spoken that word to 21Dr Bondarev. 22 My own recollection at the time was that the 23arrangement was of a very free-wheeling nature, with the 24Russians being very happy and indeed proud to help us in 25the spirit reigning at that time of Glasnost and 26Perestroika, and the extreme co-operativeness between West

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1and East. They were keen to give us access to these 2plates which they had hitherto regarded as not being of 3much value. 4 Tarasov did mention that the German Government 5were also interested in these plates, and that they were 6coming shortly to conduct negotiations about them. 7I remember clearly, and I think this is also shown in the 8diary which I wrote on that date, that Dr Tarasov 9hesitated as to whether he should allow us access without 10first consulting the German authorities. I rather 11mischievously reminded Dr Tarasov of which side had won 12the war, and I expressed astonishment that the Russians 13were now intending to ask their defeated enemy for 14permission to show to a third party records which were in 15their own archives, and this unsubtle argument appears to 16have swayed him to grant us complete access without 17further misgivings. 18 There was no signed agreement either between the 19Russian authorities and us or at that time between the 20Russians and the German authorities, my Lord. 21 I would add here that I was never shown any 22agreement between the Russian and the German authorities, 23nor was I told any details of it, nor of course could it 24have been in any way binding upon me. 25 We returned to the archives the following 26morning, Mr Miller and I, to begin exploiting the

. P-74

1diaries. Miller went off on his own devices. I had 2brought a German assistant with me to act as a scribe. My 3Lord, her diary is also in my discovery, and I admit that 4I have not yet found time to read it. I have got an odd 5aversion to reading other people's diaries, unless it is 6by way of my business. I must admit that I was rather 7perplexed by the chaotic conditions that I found there, 8that is in the Russian archives. There were no technical 9means whatever of reading the diaries, the glass plates. 10The Nazis had reduced them to the size of a small postage 11stamp on the glass plates. I should have photographs of 12them brought to you, my Lord. 13 Fortunately, Dr Frohlich had alerted me about 14this possibility, the lack of technical resources, and 15I had bought at Selfridges a 12-times magnifier, a little 16thing about the size of a nail clipper, with which by 17peering very hard I could just decipher the handwriting. 18It was even more alarming to someone accustomed to working 19in Western archives with very strict conditions on how to 20handle documents, and cleanliness and security, to see the 21way that the shelves and tables and chairs were littered 22with bundles of papers. At one stage the Archivist 23(I think it may be one of the ladies who is coming to give 24evidence for the Defendants) brought in bottles of red 25wine and loads of bread and cheese which was scattered 26among the priceless papers on the tables for us to

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1celebrate at the end of the week. That would have been 2unthinkable in any Western archive building. 3 My German assistant had worked with me in the US 4National Archives previously. We spent the first day 5cataloguing and sifting through all the boxes of glass 6plates and identifying which plates were which, 7earmarking, figuratively speaking, the glass plates which 8were on my shopping list to be read copied. Very rapidly 9we began coming across glass plates of the most immense 10historical significance, sections of the diaries which 11I knew had never been seen by anybody else before. I was 12particularly interested in the Night of the Broken Glass, 13November 1938, the Night of the Long Knives, June 1934. 14I also found the glass plates containing the missing 15months leading up to the outbreak of World War II in 1939, 16diaries whose historical significance in short need not be 17emphasised here. 18 Given the chaotic conditions in the archives, 19I took the decision to borrow one of the plates overnight 20and bring it back the next day so that we could photograph 21its contents. I shall argue about the propriety of this 22action at a later data. I removed the plate. Its 23contents were printed that night by a photographer hired 24by the Sunday Times whose name was Sasha, and the glass 25plate was restored to its box the next morning without 26loss or damage.

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1 The Sunday Times editor, Andrew Neil, was 2coincidentally in Moscow at this time, and I showed him 3one of the glass plates at his hotel, the Metropol. He 4stated: "We really need something spectacular to follow 5the Andrew Morton book on Princess Diana and this is it". 6The next day, Dr Bondarev formally authorized the 7borrowing of two more such plates anyway. So it was clear 8to me that nobody would have been offended by my earlier 9action. 10 I returned to London and over the next few days 11a contract was formalized by myself and the Sunday Times 12under which the newspaper was to pay me £75,000 net for 13procuring the diaries, transcribing them and writing three 14chapters based on the principal extracts from the Goebbels 15diaries. The contract with the Sunday Times contained the 16usual secrecy clauses. Nobody was to learn of the nature 17of the contract or its contents or the price or the 18existence of the diary. 19 For reasons beyond my knowledge, the Sunday 20Times when it came under extreme pressure from 21international and British Jewish organisations, 22subsequently put it about that I had only been hired to 23transcribe the diaries, with the implication that they had 24obtained them on their own initiative. I was not, 25however, just a hired help. This was my project. Which I 26took to them and which they purchased, as the documents

. P-77

1before this court make plain. 2 It may be felt that £75,000 would have been a 3substantial reward for two weeks work. My response would 4be that it was for 30 years plus two weeks work. We are 5paid for our professional skills and expertise and 6experience and reputation, for our track record in short. 7I returned to London with arrangements to revisit Moscow 8in two or three weeks time. 9 My Lord, the court will find that I have 10stipulated, in what I believe is known in legal terms as 11an admission, that I carried with me two of the glass 12plates from the Moscow archives to the Sunday Times in 13London, informally borrowing them in the same manner as 14previously, namely those vital records containing the 151934, "Night of the Long Knives". The reasons for doing 16I have already hinted at earlier, the fear that they would 17either vanish into the maw of the German Government, or be 18resealed by the former Soviet Archives, or be sold off to 19some nameless American trophy hunter and thus never see 20the light of day again. 21 I took these two borrowed plates straight from 22Moscow to Munich to the Institute of History (the Institut 23fur Zeitgeschichte), where I knew they had a microfiche 24printer and reading machine, together with the institute's 25Dr Zirngiebel who was an expert in the archives, we 26inserted the appropriate lenses in the microfiche printer

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1for a microfiche of this magnification, and I printed out 2two copies of each of the 100 or so documents contained on 3the two microfiche. 4 There was no secrecy about this. I at once sent 5two of those pages upstairs to the experts in the 6Institute of History itself, and two more to the German 7Federal Archives with the written request that they 8formally identify these pages as being in the handwriting 9of Dr Joseph Goebbels. This was a necessary part of the 10agreement with the Sunday Times who were being no less 11cautious than I. 12 The other principal reason that I borrowed these 13glass plates temporarily from the Russian Archives was in 14order to put them to London forensic experts for the 15purposes of authentication. I mentioned the use of 16forensic experts before. We are doing it again. In the 17same manner that others had tested the Adolf Hitler 18diaries and I had tested the Canaris diaries, the Sunday 19Times quite properly wished to have final proof that the 20glass plates were indeed of wartime manufacture. We are 21dealing after all with the KGB archives. Namely, that the 22glass was wartime origin and that the photographic 23emulsion was of wartime chemicals. 24 My Lord, the court may marvel at these 25precautions that we as non-scholars took, but it seemed 26perfectly natural to me and to the officers of the Sunday

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1Times. After all, not only were large sums of money 2involved, but the reputation of myself and the reputation 3of a major international newspaper group. We wished to be 4absolutely certain. 5 On my return from Moscow and Munich to London in 6June 1992, therefore, the two glass plates were sent their 7separate ways, heavily wrapped and protected; one to Agfa 8photographic laboratory which tested the age of the 9emulsion in a non-constructive manner, and the other to 10the Pilkington Glassworks whose laboratory specialists 11carried out similar tests on the age of the glass. Their 12reports are part of my discovery, and these confirmed that 13the tests were appropriate under the circumstances. 14 My Lord, if I may just anticipate by a few 15paragraphs what happened to those two glass plates 16subsequently. I returned to Moscow at the end of June. 17The glass plates were brought out to Moscow personally by 18a courier of the Sunday Times. As soon as the tests on 19them were complete and handed to me standing outside the 20archives building, as my diary records, and within three 21minutes I had taken them back into the archives building 22and replaced them in the box where they have been for the 23last 47 years. This is of course a matter that is very 24much in contention, my Lord. That is why I have gone into 25it in such detail. 26 What follows is not strictly relevant to the

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1glass plates, but it is relevant to this case and is best 2inserted here because of its chronology. When I returned 3to London with the remaining diaries which the Sunday 4Times had requested, an awkward situation had developed. 5Our secrecy had been compromised by an astute reporter of 6The Independent, a Mr Peter Pringle, who was based in 7Moscow at the time I was using the archives. He too has 8submitted a written witness statement for the Defendants. 9He stalked me into the KGB archives, confronted me and 10learned from Dr Bondarev of my work on the Goebbels 11Diaries. The resulting scoop in The Independent sent the 12press world about its ears. Before I returned to London 13on July 4th 199 h entire Fleet Street press and the 14broadcast media fell over themselves to print stories 15about the diaries and my own participation. In order to 16blacken the name of the Sunday Times and its somewhat 17unpopular editor, I was described with every possible 18epithet. 19 It is of relevance to this action, in my 20submission, my Lord, because the same organizations which 21had gone to great lengths to furnish the Defendants here 22with the materials they needed to blacken my name and the 23book "Denying the Holocaust", now applied heavy pressure 24to Andrew Neil and The Times Newspapers Limited to violate 25their contract with me and to pay me nothing of the moneys 26which were due to me under the contract. Under this

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1pressure, which Mr Neil described to me at the time as the 2worst that he had experienced in his life, the Sunday 3Times having in fact paid me the first installment welshed 4on the rest of the payments. I was forced to sue them in 5these same courts for breach of contract. The financial 6consequences of this violation of the contract, in round 7terms about £65,000, were serious for me. 8 When I reviewed all the clippings, when I read 9all the statements made by these various bodies and boards 10and campaigns and agencies and organizations attacking my 11name, both during my absence in Moscow and upon my return, 12I could only say, sadly, from a lengthening experience: 13"The gang's all here". The same gang whom I loosely 14describe as the traditional enemies of free speech, were 15to be seen in the following days behind the metal police 16barricades, police barricades thrown up outside my 17apartment, screaming abuse at me and other leaseholders in 18our building, spitting, harassing passers by, holding up 19offensive placards and slogans, including one reading in a 20most execrable taste, "Gas Irving". They can be seen in 21the newspaper photographs. From the photographs of this 22demonstration it appeared that representatives of every 23ethnic and other minority were present in these. It was 24the most disagreeable experience. 25 On my second visit to Moscow, as your Lordship 26will find from the relevant passages of my diary, I found

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1frostier atmosphere. The boxes which I had so readily 2been provided with on my previous trip were said to be 3missing and not found. For three or four days I was 4unable to do anything and then one box was released to me 5which I devoured rapidly. On the last day but one it 6became plain that I had jealous and envious rivals in 7Munich to thank for the difficulties that the Russians 8were now making. Dr Bondarev's secretary came into the 9reading room and said there were allegations that I had 10stolen the glass plates. I assured her that while 11I borrowed some heavy glass plate which had been in my 12custody was at that time back in the archives and nothing 13was missing, which was true. I also voluntarily wrote a 14statement which was handed to Dr Bondarev. 15 Your Lordship will find this document in both 16Russian and English, in my handwriting, is in discovery 17both of myself and of the Defendants as an exhibit to the 18report by Professor Tarasov. Professor Tarasov is to be 19giving evidence before your Lordship, and I shall examine 20him with particular pleasure. 21 Dr Bondarev's secretary came back a few minutes 22later and said that this declaration was just what they 23required. She vouchsafed to me the information came from 24Munich. 25 Your Lordship will see from the information 26which came from Munich which is in the Defendants'

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1discovery that the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte faxed to 2Moscow a particularly hateful letter about me in an 3attempt to destroy my relationship with the Russians. 4However, I already had all the documents that had been on 5my shopping list, either in long hand or by dictating them 6on to a hand-held dictate recorder or typed on to my 7portable typewriter, or as photocopies of a few pages of 8November 1938, or as photographic prints obtained from the 9glass microfiche. I have collected several hundred pages 10of the most important Goebbels Diaries entries that have 11been missing ever since the end of the war, and I see no 12reason not to be proud of this achievement. It is 13indicative of he general attempt to blacken my name and to 14silence me, that when I spoke to a meeting organised by my 15private supports' club, I suppose you would call it, the 16Clarendon Club, on evening of July 4th 1992, my return 17from Moscow that day, the hall in Great Portland Street 18was subjected to violent demonstrations outside which 19required a very large police presence to protect the 20members of my audience. This will be one of the 21photographs in the bundle I shall shortly be submitting to 22your Lordship. Later on that year when I addressed a 23third meeting at a West End hotel, there were even more 24violent demonstrations. Such demonstrations do not occur 25spontaneously. Somebody has to pay for the printing and 26the bill posting and the bus rentals. I might mention

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1that on one of the days that followed I was violently 2attacked by three men who identified themselves to me as 3Jews when I was having a Sunday lunch at a public 4restaurant in Mayfair with my family. They had laid an 5ambush for me. 6 I only recently learned that on the Monday after 7my return from Moscow, my long time publishers, Macmillan 8Limited, seeing the clamour and coming under pressure from 9unnamed members of the Jewish community (I have the 10internal memorandum), panicked and issued secret 11instructions for the destruction of all remaining stocks 12of my books without ever informing me that they had done 13so. 14 This particularly repulsive act by a publisher, 15July 6th 1992, reminiscent of the Nazis in 1933, cost me 16of course many tens of thousands of pounds in lost 17royalties. At the same time as they were taking these 18secret decisions to destroy all of my books, at a cost to 19themselves of hundreds of thousands of pounds, my editor 20at Macmillan has continued to write ingratiating letters 21expressing interest in the early delivery of my Goebbels' 22biography. It was altogether a most unhappy period. 23 My Lord, I am coming towards the end as you can 24see. I can add one further brief example of how different 25is my attitude of such documents as the Goebbels Diaries 26from the attitude of my rivals and the scholars.

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1 Dr Ralf Gunther Reuth approached me saying that 2he was preparing a five-volume abridged edition of the 3other Goebbels Diaries for Piper Verlag in Germany at this 4time and he had nothing for 1938. There were large gaps 5in the other years too. I foolishly allowed him to have 6photocopies of some of the most important passages which 7until that moment had been exclusive to myself and my, as 8yet, unpublished Goebbels' biography. The thanks that 9I received for this generous act were scant indeed. 10I provided copies to the German Federal Archives entirely 11of the entire Goebbels diary extracts that I brought back 12from Moscow. I did that on July 1st 1993. Ten minutes 13later the Director of the Archives informed me in extreme 14embarrassment that on the instructions of the German 15Federal Minister of the Interior I was permanently banned 16from the self-same archives forthwith and in perpetuity, 17which is to my knowledge the only time that such a 18sanction has ever been applied to an historian. He 19explained that this decision had been taken, "in the 20interests of the German people". 21 I mention these facts, my Lord, to show that it 22was not just one single action that has destroyed my 23career, but a cumulative, self-perpetuating, rolling 24onslaught from every side engineered by the same people 25who have propagated the book which is at the centre of the 26dispute, which is the subject of this action, my Lord.

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1MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much, Mr Irving. Can I before 2I ask Mr Rampton to open the Defendants' case just ask you 3to go back, if you would, to page 18 which is where you 4are dealing with what I think you accept is at the heart 5of the action, namely the accusation that you are a 6"Holocaust denier". 7MR IRVING: Yes. 8MR JUSTICE GRAY: Towards the end of page 18, in fact perhaps 9one can pick it up at the beginning of that last 10paragraph, you say this: "This trial is not really about 11what happened in the Holocaust or how many Jews and other 12persecuted minorities were tortured and put to death". 13Certainly as I see it, and I believe as he Defendants see 14it, that is right. This trial is not concerned with 15making findings of historical fact. But you then go on to 16set out what you say the Defendants need to establish for 17the purposes of their plea of justification, and you say 18that they need to establish, first, that a particular 19thing happened or existed; secondly that you were aware of 20that particular thing as it happened or existed at the 21time that you wrote about it from the records then before 22me, and then that you wilfully manipulated the text. 23 There was just one thing I wanted to put to you 24so that one is clear about it. You are saying, are you, 25that it has to be shown that you had actual knowledge of 26the particular fact or event?

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1MR IRVING: My Lord, I do not have an astute legal brain, but 2I am trying to make it easy for the court by establishing 3very early on what the ground rules are going to be. 4MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is why I am raising this with 5because I think it is a very fundamental question. 6MR IRVING: It is a very fundamental point, my Lord, and I am 7indebted to you for having appeared to have grasped 8precisely the point I am trying to make. 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just put to you this and then complete 10your answer. The Defendants may be saying that whether or 11not they can actually prove that you specifically knew of 12the particular fact, it was there available in the 13historical records. They may be saying, and I believe 14they are saying, that you shut your eyes to it. 15MR IRVING: That is a different allegation, I would 16respectfully submit, my Lord, by saying that what they are 17saying there is that I am a rotten historian or a lazy 18historian or an indolent historian or that I am 19lethargic. That is not the words they have used. They 20have said that I manipulated, that I distorted. That is 21why I think I am entitled to press for my narrower 22definition, my Lord. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That puts it very clearly. Thank you 24very much indeed. That completes your opening? 25MR IRVING: That completes my opening statement, my Lord. 26MR RAMPTON: My Lord, before I read what everybody has anyway,

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1I might just respond to what your Lordship has just said 2to Mr Irving in this way, by saying your Lordship has it 3right. It is not that he is indolent. It is not that he 4falls into error. It is that he deliberately perverts the 5course of this particular episode in European history, 6including what happened at Auschwitz. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you are putting the case that Mr Irving 8not only ought to have known but did in fact know what the 9historic records showed? 10MR RAMPTON: I do not know whether he did or whether he did 11not, but what is certain is that he leapt on to the sink 12of the Auschwitz battleship campaign without even opening 13the front of the fire. 14MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. 15MR RAMPTON: My Lord, Mr Irving calls himself an historian. 16The truth is, however, that he is not an historian at all 17but a falsifier of history. To put it bluntly, he is a 18liar. Lies may take various forms and may as often 19consist of suppression or omission as a direct falsehood 20or invention, but in the end all forms of lying converge 21into a single definition, wilful, deliberate misstatement 22of the facts. 23 Mr Irving has used many different means to 24falsify history, invention, misquotation, suppression, 25distortion, manipulation and not least mistranslation, but 26those all these techniques have the same ultimate effect,

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1falsification of the truth. Moreover, the lies which the 2Defendants in this case will show that Mr Irving has told, 3concern an area of history in which perhaps it behoves any 4writer or researcher to be particularly careful of the 5truth, the destruction of the Jews by the Nazis during 6World War II, the Holocaust, and Adolf Hitler's role in 7that human catastrophy, or, as Mr Irving would have it, 8alleged catastrophe, for Mr Irving is nowadays a Holocaust 9denier. By this I mean that he denies that the Nazis 10planned and carried out the systematic murder of millions 11Jews, in particular, though by no means exclusively, by 12the use of homicidal gas chambers, and in particular, 13though by no means exclusively, at Auschwitz in Southern 14Poland. 15 This was not, however, always so. In 1977 the 16first edition of Mr Irving's book Hitler's War was 17published. In that edition Mr Irving accepted that the 18Holocaust, as generally understood, had occurred. He was 19not willing, however, to accept that Adolf Hitler had any 20real or direct responsibility for what happened or that he 21knew anything very much about it until it was too late. 22 Mr Irving went to considerable lengths to 23achieve his exoneration of Hitler. At this stage I take 24but one example of many to illustrate Mr Irving's 25disreputable methods. In late November 1941 a train load 26of about a thousand Jews was deported from Berlin to Riga

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1in Latvia, as part of a process which had been initiated 2earlier that year in accordance with Hitler's wishes to 3empty the Reich of its Jews. 4 On 30th November 1941, as his daily log records, 5Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, was at the Wolf's 6lair, Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia. Mr Irving's 7account of this visit, so far as it concerns the fait of 8the Jews, is as follows. This is in Hitler's War 1977 at 9page 332: 10 "On November 30th 1941 Himmler was summoned to 11the Wolf's lair for a secret conference with Hitler at 12which fait of Berlin's Jews was clearly raised. At 1.30 13p.m. Himmler was obliged to telephone from Hitler's bunker 14to Heydrich the explicit order that Jews were", and this 15is in the author's italics, "not to be liquidated". The 16next day Himmler telephoned SS overall General Oswald 17Pohl, overall chief of the concentration camp system with 18the order: "Jews are to stay where they are". That is 19what Mr Irving wrote. 20 In the introduction to that edition of the book 21at page 14, anticipating what the reader would find in the 22text, Mr Irving wrote this: 23 "The incontrovertible evidence is that Hitler 24ordered on November 30th 1941 that there was to be "no 25liquidation" of the Jews (without much difficulty I", that 26is Mr Irving "found in Himmler's private files his own

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1handwriting note on this)". 2 Thus the reader was led to believe, first, that 3as early as 30th November 1941 Hitler had issued an order, 4faithfully passed on by Himmler to the relevant 5authorities, that there was to be no liquidation of any 6Jews, and that all Jews were to stay wherever they happen 7to be; and second that there was incontrovertible evidence 8of this in handwritten notes by Himmler which Mr Irving 9had found in Himmler's private files. Mr Irving had 10evidently read Himmler's notes, and Mr Irving's German was 11then, as it is now, very good. So what did the notes 12actually say? 13 The relevant part of the note for 30th November 141941 reads as follows: 15 "Judentranport aus Berlin. Keine Liquidierung". 16That is the German entry by Himmler. The unambiguous 17meaning of those words in English is: "Jew transport" the 18word is singular, "Jew transport from Berlin no 19liquidation". 20 Thus so far from being a general prohibition 21against the liquidation of the Jews, it was merely an 22order from Himmler to Heydrich that the particular train 23load of Berlin Jews in question was not to be killed on 24arrival in Riga. 25 The matter gets worse. What was the evidence 26that Himmler's order to Heydrich was derived from

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1instructions given to him by Hitler at a secret conference 2at which the fait of Berlin's Jews was clearly raised? 3The answer is none. This was pure invention by 4Mr Irving. Indeed, the fact is, as Mr Irving later 5discovered, that Himmler did not meet Hitler until an hour 6after he telephoned this order to Heydrich. 7 Thus the matter gets worse still. I repeat 8Mr Irving's words: 9 "And the next day Himmler telephoned SS General 10Oswald Pohl, overall chief of the concentration camp 11system, with the order 'Jews are to stay where they are'." 12 What does Himmler's note of his telephone call 13to General Pohl on 1st November 1941 actually say? It 14says this: 15 "Verwaltungsfuhrer des SS haben zu bleiben". 16 Does this mean, as Mr Irving told his English 17readers, Jews are to stay where they are? No, it does 18not. It means administratively leaders of the SS are to 19stay where they are. Nor is there in this day's entry in 20the Himmler log any reference to the Jews whatsoever. 21I repeat, Mr Irving had, as he proudly announced, read the 22Himmler log and he has very good German. 23 One asks the question: Does not this single 24example condemn Mr Irving as a liar, whose utterances 25about this awful episode in European history can never be 26taken seriously? In fairness it should be pointed out

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1that in the 1991 edition of Hitler's War Mr Irving 2corrected, though by implication only, the assertion that 3Himmler's order to Heydrich of 30th November 1941 "no 4liquidation" applied to Jews generally, and accepted that 5it applied only to a single trailer of Jews from Berlin. 6But did he withdraw his imaginative assertion that 7Himmler's instruction to Heydrich was derived from an 8order given to him by Hitler, or that Himmler's log for 91st December 1941 read, "Jews are to stay where they 10are"? No he did not. He wrote on page 427: 11 "On November 30th 1941 Himmler was summoned to 12the Wolf's lair for a secret conference with Hitler at 13which the fate of a train load of Berlin Jews was clearly 14raised. At 1.30 p.m. Himmler was obliged to telephone 15from Hitler's bunker to Heydrich the explicit order that 16these Jews were not to be liquidated, and the next day 17Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl, overall chief 18of the concentration camp system, with the order, 'Jews 19are to stay where they are'." 20 Thus was repeated and preserved a monstrous 21distortion of the evidence in Mr Irving's own hands. It 22is true that he printed a facsimile of Himmler's log for 2330th November 1941 in both editions of the book, but he 24never printed the entry for 1st December 1941, 25"administrative leaders of the SS are to stay where they 26are." One wonders rhetorically why not?

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1 So, my Lord, I pass on to Mr Irving and 2Holocaust denial. Between the publication of the first 3edition of Hitler's War in 1977 and its second edition in 41991, Mr Irving's views about the Holocaust underwent a 5sea change. In the 1977 edition he accepted it as an 6historical truth in all its essentials, systematic mass 7murder of Jews in purpose built extermination factories, 8but in the 1991 edition all trace of the Holocaust in this 9sense has disappeared. Auschwitz, for example, has been 10transformed from a monstrous killing machine into a mere 11slave labour camp. 12 What are the reasons for this astounding 13volte-face? The principal reason can be expressed in one 14word Leuchter. In 1988 a man of German origin, Ernst 15Zundel, was put on trial in Canada for publishing material 16which, amongst other things, denied the existence of 17homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. In defence of this 18charge Mr Zundel's lawyers recruited a man called Fred 19Leuchter who seems to have made his living as some kind of 20consultant in the design of execution facilities in the 21USA. Mr Leuchter was duly despatched to Auschwitz to seek 22evidence of the use, or otherwise, of homicidal gas 23chambers. He took some samples from various parts of the 24remains of Auschwitz which he later had analysed in 25America and then wrote a report describing his findings 26and summarizing his conclusions. These were that there

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1were never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. 2 Unfortunately for Mr Zundel, Mr Leuchter's 3report was declared inadmissible by the Canadian judge on 4the grounds that Mr Leuchter had no relevant expertise. 5 Now it happens that Mr Irving also gave evidence 6for Mr Zundel at that trial. In the course of that visit 7he had read the Leuchter report. Shortly thereafter he 8declared himself convinced that Leuchter was right and 9that there never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. 10So enthused was he by the Leuchter report that he 11published it himself in this country, with an appreciative 12forward written by him and introduced it to the public at 13a press conference in London, at which he declared that 14the validity of Leuchter's laboratory reports was 15unchallengable. 16 So it was that the Leuchter report became the 17main weapon in Mr Irving's campaign to "sink the 18battleship Auschwitz", as he calls it. The essence of 19this campaign is that the Holocaust symbolized by 20Auschwitz is a myth legend or lie, deployed by Jews to 21blackmail the German people into paying vast sums in 22reparations to supposed victims of the Holocaust. 23 According to Mr Irving, the Leuchter report 24is "the biggest calibre shell that has yet hit the 25battleship Auschwitz" and has "totally exploded the 26legend". Unfortunately for Mr Irving, the Leuchter report

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1is bunk and he knows it. It was comprehensively debunked 2in court in Canada. It has been comprehensively 3demolished since by people who have written to Mr Irving, 4and perhaps not least by Professor van Pelt in his report 5made for the purposes of this case. This is not the 6moment to describe all the many means by which the 7Leuchter report is demolished, but one simple example can 8be given because it is derived from the internal evidence 9of the Leuchter report itself, and must have been apparent 10to anyone with an open and thoughtful mind. 11 One of the main reasons that Mr Leuchter 12advanced in his report for his conclusion that there were 13no homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz, was that it was to 14be expected that any residual traces of hydrogen cyanide, 15the killing agent in the Zyklon B pellets used by the SS, 16should be very much higher in those parts of the remains 17of Auschwitz which were identified as gas chambers for 18killing people than in those parts which are known to have 19been used for killing lice. 20 Leucther's report recorded very small traces of 21hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber remains and relatively 22large traces in the delicing remains. Therefore, said 23Mr Leuchter, the alleged gas chamber remains could 24obviously never have been gas chambers at all. But the 25report itself contained the seeds of its own destruction, 26for it revealed that concentration of hydrogen cyanide

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1required to kill humans was approximately 22 times lower 2than that required to kill lice, 300 parts per million as 3against 6,666 parts per million for lice. This was 4internal evidence obvious to any interested reader, which 5Mr Irving certainly was, that the Leuchter report was 6rubbish. 7 So why did Mr Irving ignore this and all other 8stupidities in the Leuchter report? Why did he embrace it 9with such wholehearted enthusiasm? The answer must be 10that he wanted it to be true. After all, if the Holocaust 11never happened, then Hitler cannot have ordered it or 12known about it. Thus, as Mr Irving himself said of the 13second edition of Hitler's War, "You won't find the 14Holocaust mentioned in one line, not even in a footnote. 15Why should you? If something didn't happen, then you 16don't even dignify it with a footnote." 17 So, finally, my Lord, why has Mr Irving resorted 18to these lies, distortions and misrepresentations and 19deceptions in pursuit of his exoneration of Adolf Hitler 20and his denial of the Holocaust? One can often derive a 21fair picture of a man's true attitudes and motives from 22what he says and from the kind of people he associates 23with and speaks to. Mr Irving has done a lot of public 24speaking over the years. The evidence for the Defendants 25in this case will show that his audiences will often 26consist of radical right-wing neo-facist, neo-Nazi groups

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1of people, groups like the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi, 2white supremacist organisation in the USA, the DVU, 3perhaps the most radical right-wing party in Germany, 4gatherings of so-called revisionists, in truth largely 5Holocaust deniers, the extreme right-wing British National 6Party and so on. 7 What sorts of things has Mr Irving said on these 8occasions which might be thought to betray his underlying 9motives and attitudes? It is not possible in a relatively 10short statement of this kind to catalogue all the most 11telling instances of this kind, but it is perhaps possible 12to give the flavour of some of Mr Irving's thinking by 13reference to two short examples from the same speech. 14 In September 1991 Mr Irving spoke to an audience 15in Calgary, Alberto. He complained about pressure from 16Jewish people and Jewish bodies designed to prevent him 17from speaking. He said: 18 "And it's happening now. They're zeroing in on 19the university, 'Nazism not welcome here, self-professed 20moderate facist'". Mr Irving went on: "I strongly object 21to that word "moderate". That remarked provoked some 22laughter and it may be that it was not meant to be 23entirely serious. 24 On the same occasion, however, he said something 25which, though somewhat facetiously worded, conveys a 26message about his true views and attitudes which can only

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1be taken seriously. It was this: 2 "I don't see any reason to be tasteful about 3Auschwitz. It's baloney. It's a legend. Once we admit 4the fact that it was a brutal slave labour camp and large 5numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent 6people died elsewhere in the war, why believe the rest of 7the baloney? I say quite tastelessly in fact that more 8women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at 9Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in 10Auschwitz. Oh, you think that's tasteless. How about 11this. There are so many Auschwitz survivors going around, 12in fact the number increases as the years go past which is 13biologically very odd to say the least, because I am going 14to form an Association of Auschwitz survivors, survivors 15of the Holocaust and other liars for the A-S-S-H-O-L-S", 16pronounced no doubt "asshols". 17 This last inspiration was also greeted by 18laughter, but it was laughter of an altogether different 19kind. It was the laughter of mockery, mockery of the 20suffering of others, people whom on this and other 21occasions Mr Irving has accused of lying about their 22Holocaust experiences, of forging Auschwitz tattoos on 23their arms, of deserving both contempt and the attention 24of psychiatrists. 25 My Lord, this is obviously an important case, 26but that is not however because it is primarily concerned

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1with whether or not the Holocaust took place or the degree 2of Hitler's responsibility for it. On the contrary, the 3essence of the case is Mr Irving's honesty and integrity 4of as a chronicler -- I shy away from the word 5"historian" -- of these matters, for if it be right that 6Mr Irving, driven by his extremist views and sympathies, 7has devoted his energies to the deliberate falsification 8of this tragic episode in history, then by exposing that 9dangerous fraud in this court the Defendants may properly 10be applauded for having performed a significant public 11service not just in this country, but in all those places 12in the world where anti-Semitism is waiting to be fed. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I would have suggested -- that is 14the opening statements out of the way, as it were -- 15I would have suggested we might viewed those two videos 16but we do not have the equipment. 17MR IRVING: We do not have the equipment unfortunately. 18I think we will have the equipment first thing tomorrow. 19MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whenever. The fact is we cannot do it now. 20MR RAMPTON: No, we cannot, my Lord. 21MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just wondering where we go immediately. 22MR RAMPTON: Perhaps the answer might be home. 23MR JUSTICE GRAY: If needs be, yes. It seems to me rather 24difficult to start on the evidence without knowing whether 25we are taking Auschwitz separately and first, or whether 26it is going to be the other way round. You have not

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1obviously resolved that. 2MR RAMPTON: Can we usefully, and I mean usefully, use a little 3bit of time now, perhaps your Lordship would adjourn until 4tomorrow. We can then try to work out something a little 5less jelly like than we offered your Lordship this morning 6so far as scheduling is concerned. 7MR JUSTICE GRAY: Certainly. 8MR RAMPTON: And give a report tomorrow morning? 9MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I have a fairly short statement from 10you, Mr Irving. 11MR IRVING: As required under the new rules. 12MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. We will have to discuss how far one 13needs to deal with all the issues in oral evidence. 14I hope not by any means all of them. I think I am right 15in saying that really I perhaps know rather less of your 16specific answers to some of the specific criticisms than 17I would like and at some stage I would like to be provided 18with the answers. 19MR IRVING: I appreciate that, my Lord, and I know 20that -- I intend not to offer very much answer to the name 21calling. 22MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I agree with you about that. What is at 23the heart of the case is the manipulation allegation and 24that involves looking, to a degree anyway, at what the 25historical documents actually say and mean. 26MR IRVING: I am grateful, my Lord. Our documentation on both

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1sides is very extensive. 2MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. If there is nothing else we need to do 3now, then perhaps it would be sensible to adjourn. If you 4could let me know through the usual channels what you have 5decided, that would help me, if you reach agreement. 6MR RAMPTON: I know it would. At the moment I do not see a 7problem with the existing plan which is to bring Professor 8van Pelt over for the beginning of the last week in 9January. 10MR IRVING: There is a problem, my Lord, and that is we have 11also arranged for our gentleman to come from California. 12We will have to iron that one out. 13MR JUSTICE GRAY: This cannot be done in open court. So I will 14leave it to you and we will resume at 10.30. 15MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord. 16(The court adjourned until the following day)17181920212223242526